The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura
by NoodleRamen
Summary: Chizuru and her twin brother Kaoru have made a bet; they will switch genders at their new high school and the first to be discovered, loses. However, being surrounded by the boys in the kendo club isn't going to make things easy for her... Rated M for likely language.
1. Chapter 1

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

It started out as a joke. A cute little trick they'd bring out at family reunions or sometimes in class. It was easy for identical twins even those of different genders. Chizuru and her brother Kaoru would switch their clothes for about an hour and switch back, usually without anyone noticing. It used to be fun when they were little. But as they got older and Kaoru's voice broke, it was a little harder. Aged sixteen, Chizuru thought they'd never play that game again. It wasn't mentioned for yearsuntil the day they moved towns.

Just like it was before, Kaoru was the one who started it. They were sat next to each other on the bus. Their father was moving with them but he was rarely ever around and so it was usually just the two of them. They were sat near the back, eating crappy food.

"Hey… have we registered at the new school yet?" There was a small smile on his face. He was planning something.

"I don't think so." Chizuru wasn't paying much attention. It had been a long day and she was starting to get tired.

"Because I have an… interesting idea."

"Oh?"

"Remember when we used to switch places, when we were younger?"

"Yeah?" She was a little confused as to why he was bringing this up. It was pretty hard to do nowadays.

"Well… What if we enrolled at our new school as each other. I be you, you be me."

"What?" Now she was listening.

"We could bet on it." Kaoru looked pretty keen on the idea.

"How?"

"The first one to get found out has to do one thing that the other person tells them to."

"As interesting as that sounds, aren't we a little old? I mean, we could get in trouble." Chizuru hated getting into trouble over stupid things, in stark contrast to Kaoru who really didn't care.

"How? No one in this town has ever met us. You can just act like you always do, we'll just be dressing differently." He opened up a new bag of crisps. "I don't know why you're so worried."

"Well…" She paused. There wasn't any real reason she didn't like it. "I'd just rather be a girl…" There was a lot more to gender than just the way you dressed after all.

"We can always switch back later. We'd have to when they do those physical exam days anyway."

"Oh! That's true…" Chizuru stared out the window at the passing countryside. They were starting to get close to their new home town.

"So?" Kaoru wasn't giving up this topic so easily. "Are you in?"

"I suppose…" Chizuru had stopped listening. She figured it was just one of Kaoru's things and he'd probably drop it pretty soon. They were starting to go past buildings and so she was keen to get a feel for the place.

Two days after this and Chizuru had completely forgotten about their conversation. She was busy sorting through the boxes in her room when Kaoru walked in, holding up a piece of paper.

"It's done."

"What is?"

"School registration." She paused in her unpacking and went to see. Instead of saying Kaoru and Chizuru as it would normally, the form read Kaori and Tsuruo. Chizuru stared.

"…Why are our names wrong?"

"Did you forget about our bet?" When she thought back to their conversation from the bus she froze.

"You didn't."

"I did. I even got the uniforms." He looked her up and down. "It's a good thing you're so flat chested. You'll probably have to trim your hair though." All of these things were annoying to hear but there was one thing that bothered her more than anything else.

"I know you're Kaori… But Tsuruo? Why can't we just swap names?"

"Well… I thought it would be more fun." For him perhaps but not for Chizuru. "Kaoru is easy to change over but your name is way too feminine." She was starting to get annoyed which was understandable given the current situation but she preferred to avoid arguments.

"Do we have to do this?"

"I've already sorted things. You never know, you might enjoy it."

And so this was why, on the first day of the new term, Chizuru found herself with her hair cut to the same length as Kaoru's and dressed in a boy's uniform. As they walked to school she could feel her heart pounding. Kaoru was not so self-conscious and so was pretty comfortable in a skirt.

"How are you so confident Kaoru?" All she could think of is what would happen if someone noticed.

"Because it's not that bad. And it's Kaori, remember? Kaori and Tsuruo."

"Right…" It would've been better if she'd picked her own name at least. Maybe then she would actually be able to remember it.

As they got closer and closer to the school, more and more people were appearing and Chizuru's heart was practically beating out of her chest. She was certain that someone would notice soon and she'd be driven into exile already. But no one even gave her a second glance. It was the first day of spring term and so there were a lot of new first years. At least this meant she blended in a little more.

After walking past a stern looking teacher at the front gate they came to the class list. Luckily they were in together, which was a major relief to Chizuru as it meant she didn't have to walk into her class alone. The room was pretty full already and as they entered, a girl with black hair in two long ponytails came over.

"Are you two twins?" This was always the first question anyone asked them.

"Yes." Chizuru had always been a little shy.

"I'm Kaori Yukimura." Aside from changing the pitch of his voice slightly he'd made barely any changes at all. "And this is my brother Tsuruo."

"N-nice to meet you." Chizuro was glad that Kaoru had introduced her as she would've definitely given the wrong name.

"I'm Sen." She smiled. "I can introduce you to some of the other girls if you like?"

"Thanks! See you later 'brother'." _Eh?_ Kaoru trotted off with Sen leaving Chizuru alone at the front of the room. She wouldn't have minded going with them but as she was supposed to be a boy she assumed she should be somewhere else. They hadn't invited her anyway.

She spotted a desk to the side and so she went over there where she could be out of the way. There were a few groups of guys around her but she didn't try to talk to them. She'd probably give herself away if she did. The chattering continued until the stern looking teacher from outside walked in. It seemed he was their homeroom teacher, something Chizuru wasn't too sure on. He looked pretty bad tempered.

"I'll go through the register. When I get to you, introduce yourself." _Oh no._ This was a major problem for the incredibly shy. Public speaking. The building panic distracted her from most of her classmate's introducing themselves. Except for the very loud one behind her.

"Yo! I'm Heisuke Toudou, nice to meet you all." Heisuke turned out to be a smallish boy with large eyes and long-brown hair tied back in a ponytail. As he sat back down he noticed her looking and smiled. He was only being friendly but she was pretty flustered already and so quickly turned away.

 _Oh no! I hope he doesn't think I was bring rude…_ She did tend to think too much about minor details. So much so that she didn't notice what was going on around her.

"Tsuruo Yukimura! Yukimura!" It took her a moment to realise she was next.

"Oh!" She stood up and knocked her chair back into Heisuke's desk. "Sorry!" Sannan-Sensei was not best pleased.

"Well? Are you going to introduce yourself?" A few people laughed and she turned bright red.

"Yes Um… I'm Chi- Tsuruo Yukimura! N-nice to um… meet you."

"…Are you going to sit down?"

"Oh! Yes, sorry." And now very red and with the whole class laughing she dropped back into her seat hoping that the ground would swallow her up. The chattering died down and the lesson started. Chizuru did try to pay attention but the way the girls across the classroom kept giggling put her off. When the bell rang for break she planned of finding somewhere to hide.

"Hey Yukimura!" This was foiled by the boy behind her. He was smiling at least.

"H-hello…" She hoped he wasn't going to make fun of her.

"That was a pretty funny introduction you did."

"Oh…" And now he was laughing at her.

"Tsuruo right?"

"Err… Yes?" _That is my name. Not Chizuru, Tsuruo!_

"Call me Heisuke." He held out a hand so she reluctantly shook it. "Can I call you Ruo?"

"Ruo?"

"You don't like it? What do people normally call you?"

"Oh! No, Ruo's fine." _I have a nickname…For my fake name._ Across the class she could see Kaoru still talking to Sen.

"So… Ruo. Is that girl over there your sister?" He pointed to Kaoru.

"Yeah, that's Kaori."

"You guys are really alike. It's pretty cool."

"Thank you?" It seemed he was being nice which was a good start. She did talk to people around her but usually people weren't so… forward.

"Where are you guys from anyway?"

"We move around a lot. Most recently it was a small city."

"Lucky! I've always lived here. I mean it's nice but…" He shrugged. "It'd be nice to travel too. Why'd ya move out here?"

"Dad got a new job here so…"

"Ohh. Welcome anyway." Heisuke was a pretty friendly person and so he did most of the talking. And he hadn't realised she was a girl either. So far things were going well. Up until lunch when the inevitable happened. She was on the way to get some food with Heisuke.

"Hey, I'm just gonna nip to the toilet quick, you coming?" Heisuke had no idea of the inner conflict he had caused.

"Oh…Err…" It wasn't that she didn't need to go. There was just the obvious anatomical differences. "O-ok." She couldn't hold it until the end of the day so she'd just have to wing it. She failed at her first effort when she tried to go in the 'wrong' door.

"What are you doing? That's the girls!" Heisuke was giving her the weirdest look.

"Oh! Sorry I wasn't really paying attention."

"You're a pretty spacey guy. You were nearly branded a pervert there."

"A pervert?!" The idea of this had never occurred to her and she gulped. It was complicated being a boy it seemed.

The toilets only had two cubicles and an entire row of urinals. Chizuru froze like a deer in headlights. Heisuke didn't have any gender-related dilemmas so walked over as usual. Realising she could be about to see more of her new friend than she wanted, she dashed into a cubicle. She couldn't sit down as Heisuke would notice so she had to squat. From now on she was only going in here when no one else was around.

"Why'd ya go in there?" When she finally emerged, Heisuke was giving her an odd look.

"Oh well… I don't really… I don't like getting it out in public!" She turned bright red and Heisuke laughed.

"Wow, really? Never met anyone like that before." She was so lucky he wasn't the brightest bulb in the box. "You're pretty shy aren't ya?"

"I guess… Sorry…"

"No worries! Shin says I talk enough for everybody so I guess I make up for it." Chizuru couldn't disagree with that.

"Shin?"

"Oh. Shipachi. He's one of the guys in the kendo club. Oh, that reminds me! What club are you joining?"

"Club?" She hadn't thought about joining any kind of club.

"A few friends of mine from middle school are in the year above and they're all in the kendo club. I'm going round there after school. You should join too." He looked eager at this.

"Oh… Um well…" She definitely didn't want to get involved in a sports club. This would involve more complications.

"Just come with me later and meet everyone." Heisuke was so determined it was hard to say no.

"That would be ok. I think?"

"Great!" Chizuru jumped back. The guy was pretty exuberant. "You'll love the guys, they're awesome."

"Yeah…" She just hoped they weren't more observant than Heisuke.

 _ **I've been playing the Hakuouki Memories of the Shinsengumi game recently so wanted to try a Fanfic. This is the first Hetero Fanfic I've done and the first one from the POV of a female so not sure how good it will be :L The name Chizuru means a thousand cranes and Tsuruo means crane and also manly so I thought it would fit XD The characters may be a little OOC but I'm trying to keep them accurate. Thanks for reading and please review :3**_


	2. Chapter 2

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

Chizuru had so far today managed to avoid meeting Heisuke's friends. He'd suggested they go and eat lunch with them but she had insisted she wanted to start their biology homework and so she'd managed to spend the whole hour in the library. It was a bit of a distraction to have Heisuke there too but it was nice that he actually wanted to be friends with her. Normally she was one of those anti-social people in the corner of the classroom.

The problem was that Heisuke was now even more determined that she should join the kendo club. She'd hoped he would be happy if she found another club to join and let him down gently. The only club she'd ever joined before was cooking but as this club would be full of females she thought she'd avoid it. Girls may notice more easily.

Sadly whenever she mentioned the possibility of looking at other clubs to Heisuke during their study period at the end of the day (Kannan had decided to disappear apparently), he had other ideas.

"But you said you didn't have any other clubs you were thinking of!"

"Well I don't but-."

"Then you can join the kendo club."

"But I don't know anything about kendo…" The only thing she'd done involving kendo was when she and Kaoru had found their father's swords from his school days and nearly concussed themselves.

"You don't need to, you can learn." Heisuke was pretty pushy when he wanted something.

"I'm not good at sports either…" Last year she had fallen on her face trying to jump a hurdle.

"Don't worry Ruo, it's not so much about sports." _But it's a sports club…_ "It's about the fun, you know? The male bonding!"

"That sounds nice." She tried to smile but inwardly she was panicking. The main reason she was nervous was that it was highly possible that one of Heisuke's friends may be likely to see through her disguise. Being close to people was something she'd hoped to avoid this year so as to go undetected. Ok, she had talked to Heisuke today but that was because his desk was behind hers.

If she joined a club it would mean she'd be in close contact with a group of people. Kaoru may find it easy to act like a girl but she wasn't very masculine. Spending every afternoon with a group of guys would end up outing her for definite.

 _Perhaps slipping out would work…_ She could always say she felt ill and go home. It was with much envy that she looked over at Kaoru who was enjoying a chat with Sen. Everything went well for him it seemed.

"So, you ready?" Heisuke was smiling at her and looking keen.

"I guess…" It seemed she was going to be escorted to the kendo club so she may as well accept it. Chizuru knew it was likely she was going to have to change schools after only one day.

"It's great having another guy in my class I know. Normally I only stick with guys from the older years."

"Oh." This was nice. Guilt at lying to someone she'd only known a day. "I don't normally have… other guy friends."

"Really? Woah, no wonder you're so shy." Heisuke slapped Chizuru on the back causing her to flinch. "Don't worry, you'll love the guys. They're awesome."

"I guess they must be." This was pretty terrifying but she was going to have to get on with it. She didn't want to lose to Kaoru.

The club room for the kendo club was in a wooden building behind the main school building. One half was taken up with the judo club, the other half with kendo. There were a lot of guys going into the judo club side but the kendo side looked pretty deserted.

This was confirmed when they went inside to find the room completely empty. It was obviously well used with the exception of the actual kendo gear, most of which was covered with dust.

"Ah, guess they aren't here yet." Chizuru hovered in the door awkwardly but Heisuke had no such qualms. He pulled his shoes off, threw his bag on the side and went and sat by a table to the side of the room.

"Heisuke?" He looked back at her. "Shouldn't we wait for someone to get here?"

"It's fine! I know these guys." He was quite a chilled guy. He gestured to a space next to him. "Stop worrying and come and sit down."

"Ok…" Chizuru was reluctant but she did as he asked. For a while she hoped they would be the only ones there but her heart rate increased when she heard voices coming closer.

The door slammed open and two clearly older guys entered the room. One was tall and built with short spiked, dark red hair. For some reason he had a green sash tied around his head. The other was smaller with chin length red hair.

"Hey, Sano, Shin." Heisuke waved.

"That's Shin-Senpai to you, you cocky brat."

"And you've already made yourself at home I see." The guy with the longer red hair was the first to notice Chizuru. "Who's that?"

"My classmate Ruo. He's kind of shy but he's nice. He's got no other club so he's gonna join ours." Clearly the shorter guy noticed Chizuru's look of terror.

"Heisuke, don't force people to join the club. Sorry about him, he's always going too far."

"I-it's fine." _Oh god, too high pitched._

"Woah, he's even smaller than Heisuke!" The bigger guy had gotten close and was staring at her.

"Shin you dumbass, don't scare the guy." At least one of the two was quite reasonable. "As you can probably tell, this moron" He tapped the taller guy on the head, "is Shinpachi. I'm Sanosuke."

"Tsuruo Yukimura." It was so weird introducing herself by this name.

"Yo Ruo." Shinpachi slapped her on the back, an action that made Chizuru flinched. _He's picked up the nickname_. "I'm Shin. You may call me Shin the almighty or Shinpachi-Sama."

"Ummm…."

"Or Shin the dumbass."

"Screw you Sano!"

"It's not my fault it's true." He looked at Chizuru. "Most people call me Sano."

"Nice to meet you… Shin-Senpai, Sano-Senpai." She couldn't quite bring herself to use only their nicknames. She was too polite for that.

"Did you hear that Heisuke? 'Senpai'. That's how you should be talking to your elders." Shin started ruffling Heisuke's hair leading to a full on fist fight. Chizuru was concerned at first but glancing at Sano and seeing his lack of interest, she guessed it was a common occurrence.

"Damn, where is everyone else? Class finished ages ago." Sano glared at the clock and scowled.

"Others?" She had remembered hearing other names earlier.

"Our captain is Hijikata, he's a third year. He's the only third year, since everybody else can't be assed with all the shit they have to do this year. Then from our year Saito who's in the same class as us and Souji who is in class four." Sano was counting them through with his fingers. "And… that's it. Thank god we've got you two this year or we'd be screwed."

"O-oh." She felt like an intruder. These guys had all known each other for a long time.

"Never seen you around before Ruo." Shin and Heisuke had stopped fighting and she was once again the centre of attention. She didn't like it.

"He's new. Just moved in with his twin sister." Heisuke's voice changed slightly at the mention of sisters and he started wriggling his eyebrows.

"Twin sister? She hot?" Shin wasn't subtle. _I think I'm going to be asked this question a lot._

"Err… Well she's my sister so…"

"Ohhh I get ya." He looked at Heisuke. "Is she hot?"

"She's kind of cute." _Kaoru will be pleased._

"Guys don't scare the kid off." _Thank god for Sano._ He seemed sensible.

"I'm surprised you're not asking." Shin threw a cushion at him.

"Yeah, you are obsessed with girls."

"I am not obsessed, I just appreciate all women."

"Yeah, yeah you old perv." The bickering continued and Chizuru inwardly sighed with relief. These guys almost continuously bounced off of each other, leaving nothing for her to do. This didn't last very long.

"Who threw all the pillows over here? Dammit I've told you guys." A tall boy with long black hair had come in. He was not impressed.

"Oh chill, it's only a few cushions." Shin received another scowl. He then turned his attention to Heisuke who waved.

"Hey Captain, I bought another new recruit." He pointed at Chizuru and the man she assumed was Hijikata turned his attention to her.

"Name?"

"Tsuruo Yukimura." He walked over to a chest of drawers in the corner and opened the top drawer, pulling two pieces of paper out of it. He placed both sheets on the table in front of them.

"Heisuke and Yukimura, fill out the application forms."

"Ehh… You know who I am, can't you do it?"

"Do it yourself." He glanced at Chizuru who grabbed the nearest form and started filling it in. She got halfway through before realising that she was trapping herself. Hijikata had just creeped her out.

"Where's Saito and Souji?"

"God knows." Sano lay back on the floor, legs spread our under the table. For a sports club it was pretty relaxed. Especially in comparison to the judo club next door where they were all yelling at each other.

Soon after the group had started discussing things and mostly ignoring her, the two boys she assumed were Saito and Souji appeared. One had black hair that hung around his face, the other light brown hair, part of which was held up at the back. The brown haired boy looked quite relaxed with a slight smile on his face whilst the black haired boy seemed quite blank.

"Where were you guys? It's the first day of term!" Hijikata did not sound pleased.

"A certain someone got a love letter." The brown haired boy smiled whilst the other started going red.

"Woah, nicely done Saito. What was she like?" Shin was sitting up.

"Umm…" Saito, now revealed as the black haired boy was flustered.

"He took one look at her and ran." The one she assumed was Souji started laughing.

"Aww you let down." Shin rolled his eyes and looked away. Saito and Souji came to join the others with Souji sitting between Chizuru and Sano. When he sat down he noticed the newcomer.

"Who are you?"

"Err…" Her brain had frozen.

"That's Tsuruo Yukimura, also known as Ruo. That's Saito and that's Souji." _Thank god for Heisuke._

"N-nice to meet you." _Please talk about something else._

"Likewise." Souji yawned. "Can we get this over with quickly? I've got stuff to do."

"Like slacking?"

"Harsh words Captain." The older boy rolled his eyes.

"Just make more of an effort later."

"I usually do."

"Right, practice-"

"'Practice' you mean?" Shin, Sano and Heisuke sniggered.

"Practice will be for one hour every day after school," He continued, ignoring the fools. "We'll also have two hours on a Saturday." Heisuke looked horrified.

"Heisuke and Yukimura, hand in your forms tomorrow."

"Y-yes."

When they were finally released and she was able to escape she sighed. Heisuke appeared behind her and slapped her on the back.

"See you tomorrow Ruo."

"Y-yeah, see you tomorrow!" She waved as he wandered off and she could see the other assorted members of the kendo club walking off.

 _I just need to avoid getting overly close to them… And then maybe none of them will notice…_


	3. Chapter 3

**The Ordinary Life Of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

 _I am very glad my breasts aren't bigger_. This was a phrase that Chizuru never thought she would ever say, however their small size did prove useful when attempting to hide them. Once she had fully covered up all parts of her that looked remotely feminine, she exited the bathroom.

Last night when she had informed Kaoru about being dragged into the kendo club he had just laughed. The lucky bastard had even avoided joining any club and had come home early as she had wanted to do. Forget everything it said in shoujo manga about all the bitchy group warfare, being a girl was so much easier.

Kaoru had still been in bed when she left. He was planning on meeting up with his new 'bestie' Sen. Part of her was envious that she couldn't go and have fun with a friend like that. Heisuke was nice but Chizuru wasn't planning on getting close to him. Her brother was a lot ballsier than her.

She'd left the house at a reasonably early hour and so could enjoy the peace and quiet of the streets. The place they'd used to live was a lot more urban and the few natural spots there were had been quite crowded. In comparison this rural town was pretty blissful. There were a few other students around but no one she recognised and even at the school gates most people weren't around.

There was a reason Chizuru had come in earlier. Hijikata had insisted that she and Heisuke go and hand in their forms this morning. The person she had to give it to was the supervising teacher, who sadly was the scowly home-room teacher. For this reason she'd gone in earlier whilst he was less likely to be in the office, so she could just leave the form on his desk.

Sadly this plan didn't take into account the fact that Sannan was quite hard working and so was one of the only teachers in there. Chizuru gulped, knocked on the door and walked in.

"S-Sannan-Sensei!" _Damn that was too loud and too feminine._

"Yukimura. Is there a problem?"

"I was told to give you this!" She held out the form which he took from her and carefully scrutinised it.

"Ah, a new member. Excellent." He scribbled a quick signature on the bottom of the form and put it in one of the trays of his desk. "Do you know if anyone else will be joining?"

"Heisuke is." It was kind of strange to see him being nice when he'd been quite angry yesterday. Probably because she was joining the club he supervised.

"Toudou… Well that brings us up to seven." He made a note on another piece of paper. "Is that everything?"

"Oh yes! Thank you." She bowed slightly and left the room, walking right into Heisuke as she turned to go down the corridor.

"Woah, Ruo you were in a rush."

"Sorry…" Both Chizuru and Heisuke rubbed their foreheads.

"Just handed in your form, eh?"

"Yeah…"

"Sweet, wait there a sec." Heisuke wandered into the office and stood awkwardly in the hallway. A few other teachers wandered in and out of the office and slowly the corridors started to get noisier. Just as she was starting to worry about where the boy had gone, Heisuke leant out of the door.

"Hey Ruo, come here a second." With feelings of apprehension she followed. Sannan was waiting next to his desk.

"Yukimura, could you help Toudou carry these to the classroom?"

"Of course!" They were damn heavy but she didn't want to appear rude.

By the time they got to the classroom Chizuru's arms felt like they were going to drop off. Heisuke hadn't noticed and was chattering on about something. Mainly food related she thought. It was hard to tell since she couldn't concentrate. The relief she felt when she got to her seat after depositing the books on Sannan's desk was a great feeling.

"You're not so good at carrying things are ya?" Heisuke had just dropped into the chair behind her.

"No…"

"Ah well, you'll get a lot tougher after a few weeks of kendo."

"Yay?" Getting fitter would be nice but she doubted she could handle any harsh training. Kaoru had been telling her stories about early morning training sessions and club trips to put her off.

"It's gonna be great so don't worry." Heisuke was a very optimistic person.

The first few lessons were pretty uneventful and breaks were spent in the classroom just chatting about mundane things. It was when they got to the fourth lesson, maths, that the problems occurred.

Sannan-sensei decided to set them as homework a set of questions at the back of the textbook to be handed in the next day. Chizuru wasn't overly keen on this but her reaction was nothing compared to Heisuke's who started hitting his head on the desk as soon as lunch break started.

"Are you ok?" He looked up at her with pouting lips.

"I can't do it!" His voice rose in a pitiful whine.

"The homework?"

"I suck at maths so bad!"

"We could do it together?" His response was to jump up and lean in close to her.

"You can help me?"

"I can try?" She struggled a little with maths but she usually got it eventually.

"You beautiful man!" Heisuke actually hugged her, an act that had her tensed up. Mainly she worried about him noticing certain parts of her anatomy. "What's wrong?"

"Um…" It wasn't something she could say.

"Oh! Sorry forgot how shy you are." He tapped her on the back. "Wanna head to the library?"

"Sure." It would certainly make up for the time spent at the kendo club later if she did her homework now.

The library had a fair few people in it and most of the tables seemed to be taken, but as she went to suggest they find somewhere else Heisuke started waving.

"Look it's Saito and Souji!" The two of them were sitting at a table in the centre of the room, the rest of which was deserted. "Score, we can sit there."

"O-ok." Obviously she'd be spending time with them at kendo club but being around other boys still felt awkward.

"Hey guys." Heisuke dropped into the chair opposite Saito, with Chizuru sitting opposite Souji who gave her a slight smile.

"Heisuke, Ruo."

"H-hello."

"What are you guys doing here?"

"Attempting history." Souji held up a textbook.

"Ahh it's maths for us. Ruo's gonna help me."

"A brave decision there."

"Eh?" Souji was smiling whilst Saito seemed quite blank-faced still. Heisuke was not best pleased with this comment.

"Everybody's tried teaching him maths, he's basically allergic to it. It'll end up with you doing all the work and him copying you."

"No I won't!"

"Even Hijikata couldn't help you," Saito added despite looking down at his own work.

"It's ok, I don't mind." She was a pretty nice person after all.

"It seems you got lucky in your choice of friend for once."

"More like the rest of you guys are dicks."

This continued for a little while until Heisuke realised he needed to be working. Chizuru took a while but eventually worked out what she needed to do. The same could not be said for Heisuke who spent most of the time groaning and even scribbling over what he had done. She attempted to explain what he need to do but every time he seemed to miss something. After a long period of attempted explanations and with only ten minutes left of lunch, Chizuru just pushed her book over to him.

"You sure?"

"Just don't copy it exactly," Sannan was likely to notice.

"I owe you for this!" Heisuke eagerly started scribbling everything down.

"I told you." Souji yawned at the other side of the table and shut his textbook.

"Oh shut up." Heisuke paused to quickly give Souji the middle finger then resumed work.

"Souji, should we get going?" Saito was pointing to the clock.

"Yeah sure. See you guys later." The two older boys left and after Heisuke had finished rushing through, they had to practically dash to get to the last class. An hour of world geography later and they were on their way to kendo. This time they weren't the first ones to get there. Hijikata was sitting by the table reading but he looked up when they entered.

"Why is everyone so late?" It seemed he'd been waiting a while.

"Classes running late?" Heisuke and Chizuru went and sat with him. She was glad she went with Heisuke since being alone with an angry guy wasn't something she wanted to try. When the other four arrived the awkwardness lessened and she started to relax. Until Hijikata made an announcement.

"Ok, get the gear on, we're going to be practicing." _Oh no._ "Heisuke you know what you're doing. Yukimura come with me."

"O-ok." He led Chizuru over to the protective gear on the wall and after staring at her for a minute grabbed one of the smallest and least dusty of the lot.

"Put your PE kit on underneath and stick this on."

"Ok!" _I really need to expand my vocabulary._ When she turned around a horrifying revelation came over her. The others had all stripped down in front of her and were starting to change. It seemed she was also expected to do this.

"What you doing newbie?" Once Shin had called attention to her, everyone was looking. Looking at half-naked guys wasn't a problem since obviously she had a brother but there was no reason she could strip in front of them. Plus they were a lot more masculine than Kaoru. Chizuru froze like a deer in headlights.

"Um…"

"What's the problem? Just get changed." Hijikata sounded angry even.

"Oh yeah! Ruo's kind of shy." At least Heisuke was helping her.

"Really? What are you, a girl?" Shinpachi had meant it as a joke but she took it more seriously.

"I'm not a girl!" She roared it so loudly that she surprised herself.

"…You can get changed in the back room." Hijikata pointed to a door and after grabbing her bag, she hurried in. After she slammed it shut she sighed. It had been a stupid thing to do. Through the door she could hear them talking.

"You idiot!"

"Ow! What?"

"What if the poor kid has some kind of complex? You insensitive asshole!" It seemed Sano was having a go at him.

"Yeah Shin, you jackass." _At least they seem supportive?_

Once she had finished getting her PE kit on, she struggled a little to get the protective gear on over it. Chizuru had never worn it before and although it was relatively obvious what went where, it wasn't amazingly comfortable. When she finally got all the armour on, she practically stumbled out the door and into the back of Souji.

"S-sorry!" _And now I'm being clumsy… Great._

"Right, pair up and do basic drills. Heisuke I want you to go with Saito, Souji you can help Yukimura."

"Guess we're partners then."

"Yeah…" This wasn't a bad thing but she didn't know the boy that well and he seemed kind of difficult to talk to.

The drills they gave her to do were only very basic but she had little to no hand-eye co-ordination and slow reaction times meaning she ended up being knocked a lot and ended up missing him. The guy started feeling sorry for her and did slow down. This didn't make much of a difference. Towards the end of the session Souji started coughing. This wasn't surprising when you considered how dusty the room was but when this happened everyone else stopped.

"Are you ok?" Instantly Hijikata was next to him. He really looked concerned.

"I'm fine!" Souji sounded annoyed more than anything else.

"You're sure?"

"I said I'm fine!" He knocked the other boy's hand away. "Stop fussing!"

"I see… Well that'll do for today." After this everyone began to get changed out of their clothes and so Chizuru dashed to the side room again. She couldn't help but wonder why that happened. It was an overreaction for what it was.

Heisuke had been waiting for her and they left the building together. Just as she went to ask him about why they had over reacted so much she noticed that Kaoru had decided to wait for her and was sitting on a wall opposite the club building. He waved when she appeared.

"That's your sister, right?"

"Yeah."

"You guys are so alike."

"I guess we are." They were fraternal twins but they looked very similar.

"Hey Tsuruo."

"Hi Kaori."

"I'll see you later Ruo."

"Oh yeah!" Heisuke headed off to meet Shin and Sano and Chizuru walked off with Kaoru.

"What was it like then?" He'd waited until they'd gotten fair enough away to talk privately.

"I had to change in a separate room."

"Heh, that's pretty funny." _For you._ "PE's gonna be fun."

"Don't remind me." They had that tomorrow and she was not looking forward to it.

"Anyone guess anything yet?"

"Not yet."

"Me neither. We're not doing too bad eh, 'brother'?" Kaoru winked at her.

"It's not going to end well though." Because it would be so hard to keep it up for three years if they weren't found out. Even worse would be after they left school. Chizuru had images of going to university, still dressed as a boy because someone from school was there.

"Ahh it's a joke. Anyone can see that." He laughed and walked ahead with Chizuru following behind looking dejected. Hopefully it would get easier as time went on.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

 _Why does he have to be so harsh?_ Chizuru sighed and hefted her backpack up on her shoulder. Yet again they were walking to school separately, but this time Kaoru had insisted she go another (longer) route. Apparently he was meeting up with Sen and didn't want to be disturbed. She sighed again and continued walking. Hopefully this wouldn't make her late.

Usually Kaoru was the most dominant one of the two. As in this suggestion, most things were his idea. The problem caused by this was that it had made him very selfish, something Chizuru worried was her fault. Especially as she had always allowed him to get away with it.

Pushing her brother's issues from her mind, Chizuru attempted to enjoy the scenery around her. Now that she had stopped thinking about Kaoru, the impending horror of P.E. was upon her. She knew she could just change in the toilets out of sight but being shy, she didn't want to wear her P.E kit in public. At least in kendo she had the protective armour on top.

As she turned on to a main road leading up to the school, she spotted a familiar face amongst the groups of people heading up to the school building. Souji was dawdling, seemingly bored of his surroundings. This caused a bit of an internal conflict for Chizuru. As she barely knew the guy she didn't want to go over to him, but she didn't want to be rude and seem like she was avoiding him either. Just as she was pondering the decision, Souji noticed her and paused. As he was now aware that she was nearby, she felt that she ought to go and speak to him.

"G-good morning senpai." He gave her one of his lazy smiles.

"Mornin'." And he resumed his lazy walk with Chizuru alongside him. There wasn't much she could say to the guy since she barely knew him.

 _I can't just walk here and say nothing! It's rude!_ Souji was less bothered by this but he did eventually notice her discomfort.

"Something wrong?" She jumped. It had been silent for a while and so she hadn't expected any noise.

"No… Why would there be anything wrong?" _Other than the fact that I'm weird._

"You're twitchy."

"Oh… Am I?"

"I guess I don't know you so I don't know how normal this is." It was fairly usual as she was shy but it was more exaggerated today. Feeling an explanation was necessary she gulped.

"I'm a little shy…" This was like saying Mount Everest was merely a hill.

"I never would've guessed." Again that smile. Chizuru hadn't worked out if it was a good thing or not. It was hard to tell what this guy was thinking. She decided to try and move the conversation away from her.

"A-are you feeling better?" She sounded so feminine she started cursing inwardly.

"Better?"

"After yesterday?" This was apparently the wrong thing to say as he went from being relatively laid back to quite tense in a matter of seconds.

"I'm fine." Now that she thought about it, he had been very angry with everyone making a fuss yesterday.

"…I'm sorry." _Why am I so bad at talking?_ The better question was why had it been Souji she'd run into. He was only slightly better than Hijikata and at least someone like Sano would've held the conversation better. It didn't go well when she tried to lead when talking to people.

"Hm…" _And now he's mad with me._ This great awkwardness was just building up between them and she didn't want to be stuck there anymore. They were still far enough from the school gate that she couldn't just break off without feeling rude. Luckily a distraction appeared.

"Is that your sister?" She doubted Kaoru would let her walk in with him and Sen but at least it changed the topic.

"Yes it is…" She hadn't realised how alike they were before now. Everyone was recognising them.

"I can't decide…" _Eh?_

"About what?" This was something he was very focused on.

"Whether she's a particularly masculine girl or if you're a feminine boy." _Has he worked it out?_ That smile had reappeared and she was going red. The only plus side was that he was the first one to say that Kaoru looked masculine, something that would definitely piss him off.

"I couldn't say." If he had worked things out she would have no clue what to do.

"I'm guessing you get this a lot."

"Fairly often…" _Has he guessed or not?_

"Are you sure you're a guy?"

"I am not a girl!" And now she was shouting again. A fair amount of people passing by laughed and she scowled over the blush. _And now everybody is going to think I'm weird._

"This is a pretty sore point for you isn't it?" If anything this just made him more amused.

"Sorry…" She didn't like shouting and it was happening too often recently.

"Why?"

"For shouting."

"Really? Why apologise? Most guys would've punched me or called me an asshole."

"Really?" She couldn't imagine Kaoru punching anyone but then he wasn't like other guys.

"Wow, you have spent way too much time with your sister." Souji paused by the school gate and she stopped. She couldn't see anyone around. "I'm waiting for Saito, in case you were wondering." She blushed.

"Oh! Sorry…"

"See you later weird boy." And now another nickname had appeared. In comparison to her Kaoru seemed to be having a great time with Sen. _Curse him and his confidence._

-Page Break-

"Hey Ruo, what's taking so long? Everybody's starting to go out." Heisuke's voice echoing through the toilets made Chizuru panic more.

"Just coming!" Because she knew they were probably going to be playing football today, she was making extra sure that her boobs were really held down. They weren't big enough to push themselves out but if the cover fell off it would require explanation. After ensuring she looked sufficiently male, she emerged. Heisuke was hovering by the door waiting for her.

"What took you so long?"

"Umm…" This was hard to explain after all.

"Oh I get ya. When you gotta go, you gotta go." _Wait. No. Not that!_

"I wasn't-."

"Let's go!" And Heisuke wasn't listening. With an air of gloom she followed him down to the horror that was football.

Out on the sports fields the other boys from their class were gathered in a group. Some were stretching out to get ready for practice, others were complaining. In the distance the girls could be seen starting up a hockey game. Chizuru wasn't sure which was worse. Then she remembered the many times she'd been hit with a hockey stick and thanked every deity that she was playing football instead.

When the teacher finally arrived he decided to throw them straight into a full football match. She managed to get into defence where she could attempt to stay out of the way. Heisuke was more ambitious than her and threw himself into the middle of things.

Luckily there were no events that ended up with her giving herself away, although she still had a pretty shitty time. Twice Chizuru went to kick the ball and ended up throwing herself onto the floor. How she'd done this no one knew. And she took a face full of leather when someone kicked the ball to her and she attempted to head it.

Surprisingly she wasn't the one who got yelled at the most. This may have been because their teacher had decided she was a lost cause. Heisuke, although pretty good, had a slight issue. His hair was so damn long that whenever someone got near him they got it in their face or even had it tangled up in their arms.

"Right that's enough!" Chizuru was currently picking herself up off the floor and so was relieved by this. "Toudou! Your hair is too damn long, wear it in a bloody bun or cut it off!"

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with my hair!" Most of the rest of the class were laughing and he was blushing greatly. As she and Heisuke headed back up to the main school building he complained.

"No one else cares about it! And we've only just started here!"

"You don't have problems in kendo."

"I tuck it up in the helmet."

"Oh…" Even when she had long hair, Chizuru's hair had definitely not been as long as Heisuke's. It just wasn't very practical.

It was when they got to kendo club after school that Heisuke made a major error. Hijikata had been called to the office so the rest of them were waiting around. The younger boy (foolishly) decided that he was going to tell his friends about his trauma. For some reason he forgot what they were normally like.

"Well perhaps he has a point." Sano had a smile starting on his face.

"What?!"

"It really isn't a very practical hairstyle." Unbeknownst to him, Shin had come up behind him with a sinister grin on his face. Their plan was quite obvious.

"Don't you dare!" Sadly his small frame and lack of back up did not convince the other two. Shin forced Heisuke down to the ground and sat on him.

"Get the scissors!" Sano did a small salute and started pulling through all the cupboards.

"No! You bastards!" _Should I do something?_ It was doubtful she could manage to do anything. Saito was still reading and Souji seemed to be enjoying the show.

"Hold still Heisuke, we need you to look fabulous!" Sano held the scissors aloft and both he and Shin seemed to have an evil glint in their eyes.

Gripping the end of Heisuke's ponytail, Sano quickly cut most of it off leaving only the smallest ponytail left. When released he pulled off the hairband and rushed over to a reflective surface. His hair now hung around his face. It did suit him but clearly he was not happy.

"Why would you do that?"

"We were helping you like the fantastic friends we are."

"Why did you guys let them? Ok Ruo couldn't have done anything, but you two!" He pointed at Saito and Souji. "You could've stopped this!"

"I was preoccupied." Saito had still not looked up from his book.

"It was too funny to stop."

"You guys are all jerks!"

"You should be nice to me, or else I won't neaten up your hair." Although he wanted to continue moaning, the temptation to have his hair fixed was too much.

When Hijikata finally arrived he could only stare at what he saw. It was an unexpected scene that was unfolding in front of him.

"So is anyone going to explain to me why this has turned into a hair salon?"

"We are making Heisuke look fabulous."

"…I don't want to know." He rolled his eyes at the weirdness of his friends. "I was just coming to tell you practice is off today. I have things to do. We'll just do extra tomorrow."

"What? I am not coming in early!" Shin was scowling.

"We'll add it on the end. Just show up."

Although Chizuru wasn't best pleased about going into school on a Saturday, it was only for the morning. Plus she had a horrible feeling that her asshat brother was going to make plans with Sen. He had become such a jerk recently.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

Kaoru was still in bed when Chizuru shut the front door and headed to the school. She was happy to be wearing her uniform as she hadn't had time to buy any guy clothes and would've had to borrow Kaoru's. Hers weren't overly feminine but they were still girly enough. Kaoru had used several of hers shamelessly but she wasn't as keen on his. They were usually covered in food stains and thrown on the floor.

The only positive to coming in this early was that after this was over, she could go into town and buy dinner. Just because they'd switched genders didn't mean they'd switched roles. Kaoru had always been a lazy bastard and so she'd been doing everything for years.

All of the others had arrived before her and so she had to rush to get ready before they started doing drills. As it was early in the morning they were all pretty tired and Chizuru actually managed to hit Shin once. Luckily she was a morning person. After two hours of this, Hijikata announced that it was over.

"Ok, take the armour off, do one lap around the school and we're done." _Oh god. Running._ Cock ups and embarrassment seemed imminent.

"Alright you bastards!" Chizuru jumped as Shin started shouting in her ear. "I challenge you all to a race!"

"Bring it on dumbass!" Sano was quick to take up the challenge with Heisuke shouting alongside him. Chizuru could only cower from their sheer intensity. Saito and Souji were more restrained so she edged closer to them.

"Just get on with it you idiots." Hijikata seemed to be getting a headache which was understandable when you considered how often he had to deal with them.

"Roger!" After a mock salute, the three of them shot out of the room and Chizuru had to move quickly to keep up.

She'd only been running for a hundred metres when Saito and Souji overtook her and soon all of them were gone whilst she was left struggling to even breathe. Being unfit really sucked.

 _I really don't belong in this club._ Slowly she staggered to a halt and started gasping. No one could see her but she still felt bad for being 'lazy'. As soon as she could, she started jogging again. Up ahead she could see that someone else was having similar problems to her.

This was a comforting thought since it meant she wasn't the worst of them but this soon went from relief to worry when she saw that it was Souji who was kneeling on the ground, his head touching a small wall. Nobody else was in view.

"S-Souji-senpai?" He looked around with an expression of fear on his face, still struggling to breathe. "Are you ok? Do you need me to get help?" Though it would be hard for her to get there very quickly. _Damn my lack of fitness!_

"No! I'm fine." And he sounded angry too. With great effort he pulled himself up on to the wall and sat down. His breathing already sounded better but something wasn't quite right.

"Where's Saito-senpai?" The two of them had been together as she remembered.

"I told him I was having a rest." Chizuru looked down at him for only a second before making her decision. She jogged over to the school building and located one of the water fountains with a paper cup. It was a pretty hot day so she figured some water might help. Souji had probably expected her to have left so when she came back, the look of surprise was obvious.

"Why are you back?"

"I got you some water." Souji seemed unsure but he took some anyway. It was unlikely that he wanted her to stay there but she still hovered by his side. If he was really ill then he shouldn't be alone.

"Done." He handed her the cup. "I'm fine now so you can go."

"But-."

"You can go." Souji seemed like he would get angry if she stayed but she didn't move.

"I'm not leaving you on your own."

"Who asked you to?"

"You could barely breathe five minutes ago!"

"It's not like it's the first time." This was probably meant to comfort her but if anything it made her even more anxious.

"Shouldn't you go to a doctor?"

"I have! You're not my mother."

"So it's ok?" Chizuru did worry about illness. People tended to take stupid risks.

"It's only asthma!"

"Asthma is serious! You can die from it." She regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.

"You think I don't know that? I had it really badly when I was younger; I nearly died then!" This explained why all of his friends were so concerned when he started coughing.

"Do you have an inhaler?"

"Yes, in my bag. I do use them, I'm not a child."

"Do you want me to get it for you now?"

"I don't need it." Slowly he got to his feet. "See? I'm fine."

"But why were you struggling to breathe?" If he'd inhaled something he was allergic to, it could easily happen again.

"Because I've pushed myself too hard this morning. I'll just go slowly now so leave me alone." He went to continue running but Chizuru quickly grabbed his arm. Because really, how stupid could you get?

"You are _not_ running! You could make yourself ill again!" How could he not see that?

"This is nothing to do with you." For a second Chizuru forgot she was supposed to be a boy and that she was talking to someone she barely knew. Instead, she was talking to Kaoru who was attempting to climb the neighbour's roof or put a sealed water bottle in the microwave.

"Maybe you should show a little common sense! If you have an illness, pretending it doesn't exist isn't going to make it any better! You're not a small child so don't go around acting like one!" Souji simply stared at her in stunned silence and after she was done, she froze. "I-I'm so sorry!"

"…You really are like a girl."

"I'm not a girl!" Then he smiled that lazy smile he often did. Hopefully this meant he wasn't angry with her.

"If you insist. Shall we go back then?"

"What?"

"You won't be happy unless you walk me back right? Let's get going."

"Oh! O-Ok!" The problem with having an outburst like that was that she now felt shyer than usual and so walked alongside him feeling more and more awkward.

"I think I'll call you mum from now on."

"Please don't." She didn't want any more nicknames.

"Where did that come from? We all thought you were some shy little kid." Not that she'd been expecting a different opinion but that really cut her deep.

"…My sister doesn't do much around the house so I have to do it." This part was true. "And she often does stupid things so I have to stop her."

"Your sister sounds like kind of a brat." It wasn't often that she heard someone say something negative about her brother. In fact, she never usually complained about Kaoru to anyone else.

"I guess she is." Chizuru sighed. "And it's kind of my fault…"

"Why?"

"I've always let her get away with anything so she does it all the time."

"It's not your fault. She's probably just selfish." Chizuru decided that she definitely liked Souji at this point. No one had ever seen it from her point of view.

"…Thank you." At this point they had reached the kendo club where the others were standing round talking. When they saw them walking up, Hijikata marched over with a determined scowl on his face.

"Where were you two?" She'd assumed he was angry but when he started talking, she could hear the worry in his voice.

"Um…" Chizuru knew Souji got kind of evasive about his problems so she planned on making an excuse, but it turned out there was no need.

"I couldn't breathe so Ruo was helping me out. Sorry."

"What? I told you to stop overdoing it!"

"I know and I'm fine. Calm down."

"You need to start worrying more! You're going home and I'm walking you."

"If you have to." Souji smiled at her and headed into the clubroom. Hijikata went to follow him before pausing to look back at her.

"Thanks for helping that idiot."

"It's no problem."

"Ruo!" _Why does he do that?_ Heisuke had practically jumped on her. "You wanna go into town?"

"Um… Well I do have to get some shopping."

"Great! I'll wait here while you get changed."

"Ok!" She tried to smile but inwardly she was nervous. If he asked to come back to her house she wouldn't know what to do.

After washing and changing (involving the use of cubicles and much ducking around with towels), Chizuru went to meet Heisuke and they headed out of the school together. She hadn't had time to see much of their new town so it was nice to start investigating. And Heisuke even pointed out some of the interesting sights as they went past.

Although it was nice to have company (Kaoru never wanted to do anything 'boring' with her), Heisuke wasn't the most intelligent of people. In some ways he was worse than her brother.

"Look Ruo!" She turned round to see Heisuke holding up two melons in front of his chest. "Boobs!"

"Heisuke!" The old man behind the stall didn't look best pleased. "Umm…. I'll just have what I've got in the basket please…"

Once she acquired all that she needed she grabbed Heisuke and dragged him away. Of course she made him put the melons back first.

"What's wrong Ruo?" He was looking very innocent.

"The guy behind the stall looked pretty angry."

"He'll get over it. Sano once knocked the stall over when Shin pushed him into it. The guy doesn't even spit at them anymore." _Spit at them?_

"I see…" Inwardly she decided never to shop there again.

"Anything else you need?"

"I can just go to that shop there." It looked like a decent sized shop and she figured that more stalls would be awkward. At least you could hide in a shop.

"This is where we used to read dirty magazines." And Heisuke decided he would impart this information loudly.

"That's… interesting." It was a small town so she knew they'd have memories everywhere, but they all seemed to involve something that annoyed other people. Rushing through the shopping, she hoped she could get home where she could relax. Heisuke had other plans.

"Let's go get lunch in there." He pointed to a small fast food place nearby. "It's not too bad."

"Umm…" Before she could answer, he had dragged her in there. Not long after this they'd ended up sitting at a table in the window, each with a burger and a packet of fries.

"Ahh I needed this. Training always makes me hungry." Heisuke actually made satisfied moans as he ate.

"It is nice." She stared out the window. Just across the street was a small children's park.

"That's where I first met Sano." He'd noticed her looking and was keen to impart information. "Well, where me and Shin met Sano."

"When was this?"

"I was about seven I think…" Heisuke thought about it for a minute. "Shin's family and mine always lived next door to each other so we used to come here all the time. Then one day we met Sano and thought he was pretty cool."

"Wow…" It was no wonder the three of them got on so well.

"And after a while he brought Saito. He'd met him at school so he joined in. And then Saito brought Hijikata since their parents were friends. And after that Hijikata brought Souji since they lived next door to each other. And from there we used to meet up at least once a week." Long recital over, he sighed.

"You guys have known each other a long time." It seemed amazing that they'd known each other for that long but at the same time it did make her feel like a lot more of an outsider.

"This place is pretty small so you get to know people. Hijikata wasn't always around since his family went away a lot and Souji used to go off on his own when Hijikata wasn't around but other than that, it was mainly the group of us."

"I see…" _So I'm intruding._ It would be hard to be close to such a tight knit group.

"And now we have you too. It's awesome since I've always been the youngest." Heisuke seemed genuinely happy.

"Th-thank you…" She could feel herself blushing.

"No thank you. Now there's someone in all my classes. Although I wish you'd come last year when I was alone in middle school. It sucked."

"Sorry…" But she smiled a little.

"You look even more girly when you smile."

"Stop calling me a girl!" It still seemed like a joke but she didn't want them getting too close to the truth.

"You realise the more you yell like that, the funnier it is to do?" She hadn't and she sighed and laid her head down on the table. If only she hadn't been as shy before. Then she might have socialised more with other people and all of this wouldn't seem so weird.

 _Although these guys may just be weird…_


	6. Chapter 6

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

The first thing Chizuru did when she walked into the classroom was sit at her desk and lay her head against the cool surface. She really wasn't in the mood for learning since she was pissed off right now. Kaoru couldn't just settle for making her act like a boy all of the time, he had to further ruin her freedoms.

"Ruo? You alive in there?" Heisuke was sat behind her and poking her with his pen between the shoulder blades.

"Mostly." As she was still face down on the desk, this was muffled.

"What happened?" She looked over her shoulder at Heisuke who looked really worried. This guy really was nice.

"…My sister."

"What did she do?"

"She's having her friend over tonight so apparently I cannot be in the same house." He'd decided to drop this on her just before she went to bed, also informing her that she'd need to hide a few things and switch round some stuff. Before she had been able to yell at him, Kaoru had shot up the stairs and she'd been left to angrily tidy the house until the early hours of the morning.

"Really? Wow, screw her! We should all go round there."

"We?"

"All of us. The whole kendo club. We could swarm the place." From the look on his face, this was a plan he was very keen on doing.

"It's fine… I was going to go to the library so…" She did appreciate that he'd been angry on her behalf though.

"You can't do that!" In his view, the library was the opposite of interesting. "Come round mine!"

"What?"

"Come round to my house! We could invite the guys too, it'll be awesome."

"Wouldn't that be a hassle?" She didn't want to cause problems for other people.

"No, I haven't had the guys round in ages. Plus you haven't properly met up with everyone either." He seemed so happy that in the end she to say yes. And after practice that evening, Heisuke tried to persuade everyone else.

"Ruo's coming round mine tonight, who wants to join us?"

"I've got nothing better to do so fine."

"Thanks for that Shin, I feel so loved."

"And I need to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid so I'll go."

"So Shin and Sano… Hijikata?"

"If I didn't have a ton of work to do, I would." He looked over at his school bag and sighed.

"Killjoy. Saito? Souji?"

"I've already got something with the family. I'm sorry." Saito even looked ashamed of this.

"Souji, you have to come."

"Yeah, I guess I can watch you guys slam your heads into the wall for a few hours."

"That's kind of insulting but yay, five of us."

As there were more of them, Chizuru figured it would be easier to blend into the background. And Hijikata, the moodiest one, wasn't going to be there either. At times she really felt like a coward.

Heisuke's house was actually not too far from hers, something she figured was pretty common in a town like this. Inside, most of the house was pretty clean until they reached Heisuke's room. It looked like a small explosion had occurred.

"You lazy brat. Clean up your room before you invite people over." Sano kicked a few clothes out of the way and sat on the floor, looking kind of repulsed.

"I didn't have time; Ruo had to come round cause his sister was being a bitch."

"What did she do?" And now everyone was staring at her.

"S-she told me to stay away from the house because her friend was coming over."

"Why didn't you tell her to go screw off?"

"Shin, you are terrified of women. You wouldn't have been able to either."

"Shut up!" And Shin and Sano started attempting to throttle each other with bits of clothing from the floor.

"I'll go get some snacks~." Heisuke chose to ignore the chaos and left. Probably because it was so normal for these two. Chizuru carefully slid to the ground, making sure to sit away from the fight. And the pile of used plates that had what was quite likely mould growing on them.

"Those two are idiots, right?" She jumped slightly as Souji sat down next to her.

"Well they're very… loud."

"You don't have to be nice about it. If they're being dumbasses, tell them."

"But…" She didn't like being overly harsh to people, mainly because she hated hurting others. Probably she needed to get over that. Where Kaoru was involved anyway. At this point Shin accidentally knocked a load of books over with his foot. Souji rolled his eyes, grabbed a ball, and threw it at Shin's head.

"Hey! Screw off!"

"Don't act like a dumbass in someone else's house then."

"You hypocrite! You're always doing shit in Hijikata's house!"

"That's different." Souji looked kind of bored as he said this. "He's such a tightass, he needs it."

"What do you do?" Chizuru couldn't imagine anyone getting away with doing anything to Hijikata. The boy seemed like he wouldn't take any bullshit.

"Only little things."

"You went into his house when he was on holiday and wrapped up everything in his room in brown paper." Chizuru almost choked.

"Paper?" Souji chuckled slightly.

"Oh yeah that. He was not happy."

"But… Why?" She couldn't think of any reason to do this, especially considering the effort involved.

"He was being a moany bastard so I thought he should be told."

"I'd rather you did it than me." She agreed with Shin on that one. "He's always let Souji get away with murder, Ruo. No one else could do anything like that. It's bloody unfair."

"Oh?" Souji was even more amused at Shin's annoyance.

"Smarmy bastard."

"I brought cakes!" Heisuke chose this moment to return carrying a tray with drink cans and cake.

"Aww, housewife Heisuke appears."

"Fuck you." Heisuke kicked over a pile of clothes in the centre of the room, revealing a small table onto which he placed the tray. "Help yourselves dickheads."

"As long as it's decent stuff and not that fat free crap."

"You could do with a diet Shin."

"Shut it you bastard." Heisuke responded by pushing cake cream onto Shin's face and the fighting started up once more.

"Go for it Heisuke!" Sano started throwing stuff at Shin, whilst Souji just sat back and laughed. In the middle of the chaos sat Chizuru, wondering why she was even here. Figuring there was nothing better to do, she grabbed a cake.

"Is it good?" Souji, it seemed, had an irritating habit of coming in close when you weren't expecting it. Chizuru nearly screamed.

"I-It's great."

"You forgot to let your face know." This was a very confusing statement to her. Souji clearly could tell this as he added "you always look pretty miserable."

"I do?!" _That's wonderful. Just great._ She wasn't the happiest person in the world but she wasn't depressing either. She hoped.

"I don't remember ever seeing you smile."

"But I must have done at least once." But thinking back over the past week, she couldn't remember doing this at all. As a girl she had smiled fairly often but as a guy she felt kind of awkward.

"Nope."

"He's right." Unbeknownst to her the others had heard the conversation and jumped in. "Why are you always so depressed?"

"He does smile sometimes."

"Not often Heisuke." They were all really staring in her direction and weirding her out.

"I know how to make him smile." _Oh no._ She didn't like the way Souji was looking at her.

"Um… Senpai? Could you move away please?" Souji grinned widely and then grabbed her foot. "What are you-?"

"Tickle him Souji!" _What?!_ There was no time to react before Souji started tickling her. Of course she laughed really hard.

"No! No, stop!" _This is so embarrassing!_

"Wow, he can smile."

"It looks more like he's in pain."

"Yeah, I guess so." Souji released her and she crawled away quickly to another corner where she tucked her feet under her body.

"Ohhh, he's pissed."

"You ok, Ruo?"

"Yes…" Aside from the fact that her face was now bright red and she felt like an idiot.

"That was weird though, you looked loads like your sister."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I guess 'cause she smiles all the time."

"I've seen, she is pretty cute." Chizuru stared at Shin with a look of horror on her face. "What?"

"Nothing!" She couldn't tell the poor guy.

"So if I asked your sister out, do you think she'd say yes?" _Oh no._ It would be bad enough if someone she didn't know got tricked by Kaoru, but someone who was starting to become her friend would be terrible.

"I-I couldn't say."

"Ah, guess I'll just have to find out." The guilt was starting to crush her and she felt sick.

"…I need to get some air!"

"Eh?" She stood up and made her way out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door, into the fresh air. Here, she felt like she could actually breathe. It had already gotten quite dark and she watched the street lights flickering on as she pondered on what she was going to do.

No way could she allow a kind-of friend to get tricked by Kaoru. She would tell him to nicely turn Shin down and hopefully that would be the end of it. The boy had been nice to her so she didn't want him to get hurt.

"Are you ok?" _Holy shit!_ Souji had creeped up on her very well.

"How do you do that?"

"It's a gift." He smiled. "So, why did you run?

"Um… I just felt a little hot."

"Lies." _Damn._ "Something to do with your sister?"

"...I'm kind of worried." She couldn't tell the whole truth but an adjusted version would be ok. Souji had been decent to talk to the other day after all.

"About?"

"Kaori isn't exactly nice to guys… I don't want her hurting anybody I know…"

"Ohh you're worried about Shin. Don't be, he'll be fine. Girls are always dicking him about cause he's too nice. He can't see through it either."

"Eh?" Surely that was an even better reason to stop him.

"He needs to learn." Souji seemed unbothered about all this. And she'd told someone else; something which kind of took the weight off her chest. At this point, Heisuke appeared.

"Are you ok, Ruo?"

"Oh! Yes." _Think of an excuse! Quickly!_

"He thought he was going to puke but he's fine now." Souji luckily jumped in.

"Really? Damn, are you sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine."

"Well come up when you're feeling better." When Heisuke had left Souji winked at her.

"Why did you say that?"

"Because he's a blabbermouth."

"Oh… But why are you being so nice?" The fact that this statement could be considered rude didn't occur to her until after she'd said it.

"I'm not allowed to be nice?"

"No! That's not what I meant… But you barely know me and you came down here."

"I'm paying you back." She showed no sign of understanding so he sighed. "You helped me out the other day."

"I didn't do anything though…"

"Yeah, but I felt like I owed you something." He clearly thought she was a jackass. "And now we're even so let's go back inside."

"Oh! Ok." She might as well enjoy herself since she was supposed to be around 'friends.' And maybe one day she wouldn't feel so fake around them.

"And smile a little, you look kind of depressed."

"…Sorry."


	7. Chapter 7

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

After her conversation with Souji, Chizuru had tried her best to enjoy herself. These guys were technically her new friends and although they thought she was a man, she was still being her usual self around them. She wasn't talkative like the rest but she tried and when they sat watching a movie, she was pretty relaxed. So relaxed that she ended up falling asleep.

This was something she realised when she woke up the next morning. Chizuru had been sitting up against the bed and had fallen asleep leaning up against it. As a result her back and neck hurt and she had a headache. Lying on the ground and snoring loudly was Shin, with Sano and Heisuke leaning over the table.

… _I just slept in a room full of guys._ It wasn't like she'd shared a bed with them or anything, but Kaoru would never let her live it down. He was an asshole. Chizuru had never been to a sleepover before since he had no close female friends and so this was a completely new experience.

Whilst she was having some kind of internal conflict, she heard footsteps making their way down the hall. She stared at the door like a deer in headlights as it slid open. It was luckily Souji and no one else.

"Mornin'." He appeared to have slept in his uniform and was yawning as he spoke. Seeing his uniform meant that a horrifying realisation came to Chizuru.

"We're late for school!" Without thinking she shouted this. The others barely moved.

"And?" Souji looked amused at her panic. "You want breakfast?"

"Um…" It was hard to think when you were worrying. "Isn't this Heisuke's house?"

"His family won't care." And without waiting for an answer he strolled off. Chizuru only thought for a second before following. Unlike her, Souji seemed very comfortable in this house and rifled through the cupboards, looking for any interesting edibles he could find.

"I feel like toast." Probably this was his way of offering her food.

"Do you think I could have some too?"

"If you really want some." She was often confused by her interactions with him. It was hard to dwell on this however, when you were worrying about being in trouble with the school. Her arms were kind of twitchy from the stress and she cursed herself for not stopping to grab her phone.

"Hey twitchy!" She jumped as Souji dumped a plate in front of her. "Breakfast."

"Thank you…" Although she did feel awkward eating in another person's house without permission. Souji had little issue and hopped up at the breakfast bar, scoffing toast.

"You want to sit down Twitchy?" And now she had another nickname. She eased herself into the chair.

"Souji-senpai?" He gazed over at her mid-mouthful. "Will we be in really big trouble?"

"Probably." He shrugged. For him this really wasn't as much of a big deal.

"…You seem calm about this." She definitely wasn't. Her teacher was terrifying and she didn't want to get on his bad side already.

"No point in worrying about something you can't do anything about." Chizuru knew he was right but it didn't stop her from feeling like she was about to vomit. All she could do was nibble at the piece of toast in front of her. Souji could see how pale she'd gone and apparently took pity on her. "We've done it a lot of times, you definitely won't get in that much trouble. It's only your first offence."

"Oh… How many times have you done it?" She could recognise an attempt to cheer her up.

"No idea. Usually there's a lecture, then we get given detention. That's about it. You may also get the whole 'don't get led down the wrong path' speech too." He smiled. "You look so twitchy, Sannan will probably feel sorry for you."

"He doesn't seem the kind of person to feel pity." She was scared of the way he glared. Then again, she was a shy person. Most human interaction scared her.

"Yeah he is kind of a ball buster. Nicer to the girls since they get all tearful."

"I see…" _Damn. Maybe I should ask Kaoru to swap with me?_ That would just further complicate things and she shook her head to get rid of the thought.

"Just apologise and all that." He tossed the crust he'd been gnawing off down on to the plate and looked pointedly at the barely touched food in front of her. She just pushed the plate towards him. Her appetite was lacking right now.

Shin and Sano appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, both looking as tired and dishevelled as she was.

"Why did we do it? My neck hurts like fuck." Shin was rubbing his neck and grimacing.

"And I cannot be bothered with all the crap I am going to get for this." Chizuru was pleased to note that Sano seemed to be as worried as she was.

"Where's Heisuke?"

"Still sleeping obviously."

"I am not surprised," said Souji, rolling his eyes.

"I'll get him up." Shin grabbed a piece of toast and shoved it in his mouth before leaving the room. Sano knew to expect idiocy and so sat down next to Souji and sighed.

"Why did we get saddled with these fools?"

"I wouldn't say saddled with. You've got to admit that it's pretty fun." Sano didn't look so convinced.

"I forgot… You're practically one of them." He looked over at Chizuru instead. "At least we have one more level-headed person now."

"Level headed?" She didn't feel level-headed; most of the time she wasn't sure what she was doing.

"I think he means you're not a slacker or a moron like the rest of us."

"Basically."

"Oh… Thank you?" She wasn't sure what the proper response to this was. There was a loud screech from upstairs followed by laughing and lots of angry yelling.

"Sounds like Heisuke's up." Neither of them seemed too surprised at the sounds going on upstairs. There were heavy footsteps along the ceiling and down the stairs, and then Heisuke threw the door open with a pitiful look on his face.

"Why didn't you stop him?"

"You know how hard it is to stop Shin." Sano yawned.

"Plus he took advantage of the fact that we didn't care."

"Assholes." He came and sat next to Chizuru. "Ruo! They're picking on me!"

"Err…" It seemed something was expected of her so she started patting him on the shoulder. "There there."

"You suck at cheering people up." Souji was smirking.

"I'm trying my best!" She hated the way the pitch of her voice went up when she got angry.

"Yeah Souji, Ruo is doing a better job than you!"

"Wow, the pipsqueaks are joining forces."

"Be afraid Souji, be very afraid."

"Patronising bastards." Heisuke scowled in their direction. "What's Hijikata's reaction gonna be to us not showing up?" She'd forgotten about Hijikata. She didn't want to be reminded about Hijikata.

"Pure, unadulterated rage would be the usual." None of them looked too bothered.

"Enjoy your bath Heisuke?" Shin came back in chuckling and received a middle finger in return.

"What did you do?" Sano looked exasperated by the pair of them.

"He tipped water on me!"

"He screamed like a little girl!"

"I'll make _you_ scream like a little girl!" And Heisuke ran at Shin, tackling him to the ground.

"Right, we're going out." Sano stood up and grabbed Souji. "Come on Ruo."

"But-."

"Move." She didn't want to argue with Sano and so followed the two older boys, leaving the two fighters to it.

"Let's go to the shops around the corner." At least someone was taking charge of the situation.

"I don't have my wallet…" This was what she had tried to say before.

"You can pay us back later." Her arguments were waved off and they headed down the street. "Why did none of us notice that we were all falling asleep?"

"You did all drop off pretty quickly." Both of them stared at Souji who had an innocent expression on his face.

"So you noticed?"

"I was pretty tired too. I barely had any energy to get into bed."

"You asshole. You could've at least set an alarm."

"I wasn't in the mood."

"Typical. You are such a troll."

"You should have known this by now."

Whilst they were walking round, Chizuru was very conscious that she was wearing the same clothes she'd had on for two days. There weren't many people around but it was hard not to feel weird. The guys weren't too fussed though.

"Couldn't we go into school late?" They both looked amused.

"We could but that would be sensible."

"And we don't do sensible."

"Oh…"

When they got back to Heisuke's, the other two had made a huge pile of burnt toast and were throwing pieces of it at each other from across the kitchen.

"Why? Just why?" Sano was kind of like their mother it seemed.

"We needed ammo for our food fight."

"So you did this on purpose?!" Sano simply face palmed. That was all he could do.

"What did you expect really?" Souji rolled his eyes. "You've known these two long enough."

"Ugh…" Chizuru hovered in the doorway watching the weirdness unfolding. She had definitely never seen Kaoru do anything like this before. Probably her brother was the weird one. He did seem to like dresses more than any guy she'd ever met before.

"Ruo!" _What the-?_ She was greeted by a slice of toast to the face. "You've got to be faster than that!"

She only considered things for a few seconds before retrieving the toast and lobbing it hard at Shin's head. If she was one of them, then she might as well enjoy herself. From there it descended into chaos with toast flying across the room and all of them ducking under tables and beside doors to avoid taking a hit. The enjoyment of this was lessened when they heard a key in the door.

"Oh shit." Heisuke had gone very pale.

"Heisuke?"

"Hi mum!" He was panicking now and Chizuru could see why. The room was covered in toast. " _Help me!_ "

"Well it was nice but now we have to go!"

"Agreed."

"See you Heisuke!"

"Shouldn't we-?" Chizuru was interrupted by Souji and Shin both grabbing her arms and leading her out of the room. It seemed they were leaving Heisuke to his fate. Outside there was a collective sigh of relief that they had escaped.

"And now we scatter before she comes after us."

Chizuru did not want this to happen and so gladly headed towards her own home. She wasn't looking forward to it though. Kaoru was going to give her so much shit for all this.


	8. Chapter 8

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

As she had predicted, Kaoru had been an arse all night. He kept making comments about boyfriends and laughing loudly at her. Chizuru was very tired of his bullshit. She was usually pretty shy but her brother riled her up. He'd had years of practice.

When he made a final comment as he headed up to bed, Chizuru decided her needed to be taught a lesson. She waited until he had settled in and then upended a bowl of water on to his head. Shin had been useful. She would have to thank him for the inspiration.

"What the hell?! You bitch!" It was pleasing to hear him actually annoyed and she had to barricade her door to stop him getting his revenge. It was likely Kaoru would get his payback in the morning but for now she could feel satisfied.

By the time she got up for school the next day, she had forgotten all about this. Her brain had decided to bring up the fact that she was probably about to get a bollocking from Sannan-sensei and therefore should be worrying. Just the idea of him had her in cold sweats so she wasn't sure how well she could face him.

Although feigning illness was tempting, she knew it was better to get it over with now. This didn't mean she was calm. The whole walk to school, her feet felt like they were made of lead. The worst part was that she would be facing him alone. She'd thought this anyway. Until she came to the school gate and found Heisuke standing there, looking equally as nervy. His face brightened when he saw her though.

"Thank god you're here! I thought I'd have to face the Sannan monster alone!"

"So did I…"

"I thought we could go in together and dilute it a little."

"I'm glad." Chizuru sighed in relief. With Heisuke, she felt a lot less terrified walking to her doom.

Sannan had not been happy with them. Both had received a dictionary to the head and they were yelled at for a good twenty minutes about how irresponsible they were and how they should not be led by Shin's example. He'd assumed it was mainly his fault.

"Now get to home room and stop acting like a pair of idiots." And that was their cue to escape. Once they were out, they both sighed in relief.

"Thank god that's over."

"Yeah… He's really scary when he's angry." Chizuru had never been yelled at like that before. Then again, she had been pretty boring before this. Not that she was any more interesting now.

"Ah well. It was worth it!" Heisuke did a little fist pump. "Although mum really wasn't happy…" He shuddered.

"Was she really mad?" From the way the others had fled, she imagined that the woman was quite formidable.

"I spent all night cleaning the kitchen." He sighed again.

"Sorry I didn't help…"

"I don't blame you. Though next time we should use your house."

"That wouldn't work…" She didn't want Kaoru embarrassing her.

"Would your sister not like it?"

"No."

"Shin seems to like her." She had forgotten that part but now she was reminded, the guilt returned.

"He shouldn't date her, she's kind of…" It was a struggle to find the right word.

"He's scared of women so I doubt he would. He can't even talk to girls."

"Really?" Sano had said something to that effect before.

"Yeah he goes all red and tongue tied. It's pretty funny."

"Poor Shin…" Their conversation was interrupted by Kaoru walking into Chizuru and knocking her over.

"Oops, sorry Tsuruo. Didn't see you there." _Like hell you didn't!_ Chizuru glared at her brother's retreating back. Clearly the little bastard was getting her back.

"You ok Ruo?"

"I'll live." She couldn't stop herself from feeling annoyed

"Why did she do that?"

"She was being annoying so I tipped water on her in bed."

"Nice! You two don't get on do you?"

"We used to…" They had been really close as children but the older they got, the weirder Kaoru became. Especially recently. He had become kind of an asshole.

"I'm glad I'm an only child." Heisuke pulled her up. "We should get going before we get in more trouble."

"Agreed."

-Page Break-

It was after school; kendo club had finished and Chizuru really didn't want to go home. Kaoru had been getting at her all day and she couldn't work out why. All she'd done was stand up for herself once and suddenly he was out to get her.

Generally he was attempting to knock her things over and nudge her. The kind of thing you did in elementary school. He even threw a few balls of paper at her in breaks. Chizuru felt like she should be upset about this but she couldn't be. He needed to grow up.

After a whole day of this she had to then put up with the rage of Hijikata. He'd launched into a tirade about how they could have bloody told him they wouldn't be there so he could go and do some of the many bits of homework he had.

Because of this, she really didn't feel like Kaoru and his moods. Their father wouldn't be home so there'd be no buffer. Luckily for her, a reprieve appeared.

"Hey Ruo, you look half-dead."

"Wow Shin. You are so good at dealing with people. Really." Sano rolled his eyes.

"I was just saying!" Shin scowled. "Why are you standing around here? You look like a creeper."

"Well thanks…" As if she wasn't self-conscious enough.

"Again, there's a thing called a brain. Use it before you speak."

"Shut up!" Sano easily dodged the punch Shin aimed at him.

"Do you two ever stop?" Chizuru jumped. She hadn't seen Souji approach but now he was standing behind her. "Hey Twitchy."

"Why do you do that?"

"It's funny of course." Chizuru rolled her eyes. She might have known.

"I'm with you Ruo, he's a creepy little bastard." Souji just laughed.

"Ruo's the one staring at people."

"I'm not staring! I am thinking."

"About?"

"What to do since I don't feel like going home to my sister."

"In that case, follow me." Souji smirked at her.

"Where?"

"You'll see." Chizuru was kind of irritated by his attitude but she had nothing better to do.

Considering normally he was so laid back, he was walking quickly and she had to almost jog to keep up. Probably this was being done on purpose to bother her. At least he was giving her something to do. Though she wasn't sure she liked the way he was leading her round loads of back streets and alleyways.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"My house."

"Why?"

"I'm giving you something to do."

"Which is?"

"You'll see."

"…" Chizuru settled for scowling at the back of Souji's head and hoping he could tell she was annoyed. Probably he'd noticed and was greatly amused.

Souji's house wasn't actually that far but for some reason he had taken her an overly long route. The guy was a pain in the ass. What he wanted was very obvious when they opened the front door.

"And here it is."

"What the hell have you done?" The house looked like a bomb had gone off. There were clothes everywhere, old plates with mould on them, and rubbish bags sitting around.

"My sister went on holiday for a week and she's back tomorrow. I really need this place cleaned up."

"…How did you let it get this bad? And why did you assume I'd help you?"

"You seemed the type to be coerced into helping people." This was true but it was annoying.

"I'm not doing all of it."

"Obviously I'm helping."

Chizuru felt very sorry for Souji's sister. Clearly she had to put up with a lot from him if he kept the house in this condition all of the time. And in only a week, he'd spread stuff around the entire house. It took them hours to do it all. He was so useless. That or he was lazy.

"I can't believe you let it get to this."

"Yeah, I got kind of distracted."

"With what?"

"Internet." She raised an eyebrow. "Really. I like looking at random stuff online."

"You have a problem."

"I know. I could be more productive but…" He shrugged. "Thanks for the help by the way."

"I didn't have much else to do." She would have ended up in a library otherwise.

"As thanks I will make you some toast."

"…Is that all you can make?"

"It requires minimal cooking time."

"I see…" One benefit to spending more time with Souji was that she was starting to get used to his weirdness. Although he was very hard to read.

"Did you ever wear a dress when you were a kid?" Like when he said these kind of things.

"What?!"

"Well you're pretty feminine looking. Probably you look a lot like your sister. Mine used to put me in a dress since I had the longish hair going on."

"Really?" Wordlessly he leaned over and grabbed a photo frame. It did indeed show him wearing a dress. He actually looked kind of cute. And now she was blushing for thinking that. She had to remember he was weird.

"Something wrong?"

"No! Why do you show people this?"

"My sister would if I didn't. I take away the satisfaction." Souji smirked.

"Fair enough… And yes I did. My sister made me."

"Thought so. Pushy sisters suck, don't they?"

"Oh yes." He was preaching to the choir on that one. "Where is your sister?"

"Trip with a boyfriend. I don't ask."

"You're very caring."

"Aren't I?" He laughed at her facial expression. "You and Sano are very alike."

"Are we?"

"You're both like mothers."

"Thanks…" She did not like the comparison. It made her feel more frumpy and awkward than she already was.


	9. Chapter 9

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

Chizuru had known today was going to be an interesting one. For a start, one of the first things she had seen when entering the gates was Heisuke and Shin having some kind of wrestling match. Over what, she was not sure. All she knew was that Saito was sitting quite happily with a book, ignoring all their foolishness. He nodded at her when she approached but otherwise remained oblivious to the world.

Chizuru could hear a few people whispering but most of the older students in particular were used to Shin and that group in general, and so ignored any of their loud fights. It was hard to know the reason for the particular altercation but it apparently had something to do with bread. She decided in the end that it was best not to ask and made her way into the school.

It was strange to her that she was becoming so accustomed to the loud and strange behaviour of the other club members but she felt happy about it. It was nice to be having fun instead of worrying all the time.

Entering the classroom, she could see Kaoru chatting with Sen at the other side of the room. She wasn't feeling envious of him like she had at first. In some ways, that looked really boring. This Sen girl seemed really nice but didn't seem the type of person to run around having toast fights. The memory had her grinning to herself.

This still complicated her feelings about the situation though. It was hard to lie to people who were becoming good friends. Smile gone, she sighed and sank her head on to the desk. Losing to Kaoru would bring about an irritating penalty so she didn't want to say anything. Not to mention what the hell would other people think? Kaoru would get a lot of crap, but she'd probably be avoided with him.

Chizuru was a neurotic type of person so this bothered her for a while. It was hard to forget and distract yourself when you were like this. Truly, an annoying personality trait to have. The only distraction she had was Heisuke throwing things at her whenever he was bored. This happened frequently throughout the day.

"Seriously though, why do we have to study so much useless crap?" He announced this at the end of history, slumping over the desk.

"Because life is unfair and strange."

"It really is. Ugh I need caffeine."

This had them walking to the lunch room, which led on to the second interesting incident of the day. Namely, Heisuke hyped up on coffee. She hadn't known that this was a bad idea; no one else had ever told her. Though when Heisuke was sat there twitching, occasionally kicking her under the table she found out for herself.

"You gave him coffee didn't you?" Sano was scowling in her direction whilst Shin was watching Heisuke with a smirk on his face.

"Is this bad?" It wasn't like she could have stopped him buying something with his own money.

"He's kind of a twitchy pain in the ass."

"I guessed." She was happy to let the others deal with his weirdness.

Heisuke having coffee turned out to be a bad thing for her in the end. Ten minutes after Shin and Sano, Souji decided to join them since Saito was busy and he was bored. They were sitting and watching Heisuke, listening to him jabbering at three times the speed of usual. And then he got a bit over-enthusiastic in his hand gestures and knocked the remains of the coffee onto the person sitting opposite him. Sadly this was Chizuru.

"Oh shit! Sorry Ruo!" She could only stare at the growing stain on her shirt.

"You dumb shit! Why am I not surprised?" Sano stood up. "Come on Ruo, you can borrow one of my spares."

"Umm…" This wasn't good. Not good at all.

"Let's go. Shin can deal with twitchy." Souji had grabbed her arm and was pulling her along.

"I-I can deal with this by myself!" This seemed a recipe for disaster. They were dragging her towards the boy's changing rooms, somewhere Chizuru did not want to be going.

"We're not gonna strip you or anything, I'm just getting my shirt." This was the reason Sano was coming anyway; Souji was probably with them due to boredom.

"No, really! I'm fine!" They'd already pulled her into the room and were heading into the depths. No one else was around luckily but just these two were bad enough.

"Ok, here's my spare. Knock yourself out." Sano threw her a shirt.

"Ok, I guess I'll head to the toilets then…" She turned stiffly but Souji had grabbed her by the shoulder.

"Why are you so prudish?" There was a glint in his eye as he said this. Sano rolled his eyes and started messing around with his locker. He wasn't interested in Souji bothering people.

"I'm not prudish!"

"Seriously, do you have a tattoo or something under there?"

"No! I'm completely ordinary! I just don't like people watching!" The problem was that Souji was a sadistic bastard. He didn't know that he was dealing with a girl; to him it was an awkward guy. So he yanked up her shirt.

"Don't be such a-!" Although she pulled it back down, he had definitely seen. She didn't have much in the way of breasts but the binding was obvious. This was the first time she had seen him look lost for words. Sano hadn't noticed but he'd realised something was wrong.

"What? What's going on?" Souji opened and shut his mouth a few times. And then he laughed nervously.

"Well… That explains… things…."

"What does?" Souji looked at her.

"…I'm really sorry!" _Oh god, I am so screwed. They're all gonna be really mad at me! And Kaoru will screw with me and everyone will know!_

"For what?" Sano was now glaring at both of them. "Will someone tell me?"

"For lying about her gender I believe."

"Her?" Sano leant right in and stared. "I see…"

"I-I didn't want to do it!" She was really panicking now.

"Right… You go change and then we'll talk."

"Ok…" She felt her heart hammering in her chest as she headed to the toilet. She didn't know what to do. Once she returned, Sano and Souji were waiting for her. It was hard to look at them right now.

"To the club room," announced Sano. She gulped.

-Page Break-

Chizuru had expected all the others to be there. It had seemed to be a likely outcome. However, the room was empty when they arrived. When the three of them were sat around the small table, Souji started.

"So… you're female?"

"Yes…"

"Dressing as a guy?"

"Yes."

"Why?" Both of them were looking at her.

"I-It was my brother's idea!"

"…Oh!" Surprisingly Sano started to laugh. "Shin likes a guy."

"He's gonna love that." Both of them shared a grin. "Why are you guys doing that?" They were both gazing at her so she figured she may as well just come out with it.

"We used to do it a lot as kids… And then when we moved here, he said we should try it at school. I thought he was joking! But he was the one who sorted out all the paperwork so…" Chizuru sighed.

"Why is that a problem? Didn't you guys just switch names?"

"No…. He changed them." Probably because it was the only way to force her to do it.

"Hmm… He's good." Souji seemed genuinely impressed. "What's your real name then?"

"Chizuru… And he's Kaoru."

"Oh." Then there was silence. Both of them were looking at her and considering something. She couldn't take much more of that though.

"Are you going to tell everyone?" This was her main concern. Especially as Kaoru would want her to pay up on her bet. Sano and Souji shared a glance.

"What happens if you're found out?"

"I have to do whatever he says…" She sighed. It would probably be something really sadistic.

"Well I don't know about you," said Sano, "but I don't mind keeping this quiet."

"It could be interesting~." And Souji had a devilish grin on his face. Though worried about that look, she was focused on what they had just said.

"R-Really? What about the others?"

"Hmm… Well Hijikata is kind of a prude…. And Saito and Shin are awkward around women. And Heisuke is a huge blabbermouth. I'd say we should just stick with the three of us." Souji nodded as Sano spoke.

"Thank you so much!" She was almost crying with relief. At least for a little while longer, she'd be safe from Kaoru.

"No problem." Souji did unsettle her though. He seemed to be enjoying this scenario and was looking at her as if she were a particularly interesting new toy.

"Damn… Shin is gonna be so freaked out when he finds out he's been talking to a girl…" Sano sniggered. "He usually starts stuttering and blushing."

"He'd be really weirded out then?" She kind of liked Shin. He was a funny guy, if a bit over-enthusiastic.

"Probably. And you slept in a room full of guys. I bet your brother loved that one."

"He did." She furrowed her brow. Remembering some of the things he'd said pissed her off.

"Damn… I can't believe we missed it before. It's so obvious!" Souji was scrutinising her face with his head tilted on one side. "You really are feminine. And you have curves."

"Kaoru looks pretty feminine too though." He looked even better in a skirt than she did; a fact that made her more than a little dejected.

"He is. Do you think he just wanted to become a woman and so was using this as an excuse?"

"I have no idea… I think it's mainly to piss me off." Especially as it had been his favourite activity since childhood.

"He sounds like a pretty fun guy." Both Chizuru and Sano glared at Souji.

"Ah well, don't worry about it. We'll help you out." Sano at least, she could believe.

"Thank you… And I'm sorry for lying…"

"Well as long as you weren't faking your entire personality, I don't mind."

"And maybe we could have a little bit of fun with your brother…" Souji chuckled a little.

"Fun?"

"Don't start him off."

"I just thought, we could encourage Shin to err… pursue the object of his affections."

"That would be unfair to Shin wouldn't it?"

"No, he has a point..." _You've changed your mind quickly!_

"He'd do the same to any of us if he could. And he's always made comments about my sister so screw him!"

"I see..." Although worried about what Souji might be plotting, she felt a lot better then she had in weeks. Sano and Souji hadn't been mad. She smiled. Things were starting to look up.


	10. Chapter 10

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Dislciamer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

When Chizuru woke up the next day, she felt like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Now that she had some help, it would make it a lot easier to hide things. Although the fact that it was Souji made her feel a little anxious. He'd been looking over at her and doing that smile all afternoon and Chizuru had no idea what he was planning.

"Good morning 'brother'." For once, Kaoru was actually still here and up when Chizuru exited her room.

"'Sister'." It was awkward sitting across from him at the breakfast bar whilst he was in full school uniform. She felt kind of strange seeing him dressed like this at home; it was much easier to ignore when they were at school. "Is that a hair slide?"

"You like?" He held out the aforementioned slide, which consisted of a yellow clip with a bright blue flower on it.

"Where did you get that?"

"Sen gave it to me."

"You guys are close." Kaoru seemed to be spending time with Sen most days.

"She's nice enough. And you seem to be having fun with that loud guy from our class."

"Heisuke? Yeah, he's fun." And he'd introduced her to the mad group.

"You know, this is going pretty well isn't it" Kaoru leaned over, head on his hands and smiling.

"Yeah…" _Even though I've already been found out…_ Yeah she wasn't saying that.

"I bet you miss wearing one of these." He stood up and gave a small twirl in the skirt. "These things are comfy."

"I guess?"

"If only there was a way for you to wear one…"

"I can wear one around the house dumbass." She stuffed an apple into her mouth.

"You have gotten really mouthy." This was true. She'd never sworn as much before this.

"I am standing up for myself." She grabbed her bag and slipped off of the chair. "And I have to go."

"Escaping." She stuck her tongue out as she went out the door. It was somehow satisfying to give him shit; mainly because she'd been putting up with him for years.

Souji was waiting for her at the end of the street. She'd known he would be but she still felt nervous. It seemed likely that he had some kind of evil plan, something she knew for a fact when she saw his smile.

"Hey Chizuru."

"Don't call me that in public!" She practically hissed at him. They were still way too close to her house for a start.

"Oops. My bad." He didn't look very bothered.

"…Just be careful."

"Hmm… By the way, how devoted is your brother to this bet of yours?"

"Very." He really wanted to win.

"So he'd even date a guy to keep it up." She glared.

"Don't do it."

"Do what?" The innocent expression wasn't fooling her at all.

"Please don't involve Shin in this! He's a nice guy." That was probably going a bit far but he didn't deserve Kaoru.

"If you insist… It would be funny though." _This guy… He is just as bad as my asshole brother._ It was a good thing that Kaoru and Souji had never become friends since they would have been a formidable evil force. Chizuru made a note to ensure this never happened in the future.

"It'd be better to get him a girlfriend." He'd give himself away then.

"Speaking of girlfriends…" Souji pointed further down the street. Saito was frozen on the spot whilst a girl was rapidly talking to him. The normally pale and expressionless boy was red and looking terrified.

"Is that his?"

"He doesn't have one. They scare him."

"Girls?"

"All humans really. He's awkward." She could tell. Currently he was avoiding eye contact and twiddling his fingers. The more she leaned towards him, the further back he tried to move.

"Should we help him?"

"We could…" Souji looked too amused to consider helping though. Chizuru rolled her eyes and headed in that direction.

"Saito-Senpai!" She made like she had just run over, earning a glare from the girl. "I need to ask you something."

"Ok! Sorry." He quickly grabbed onto the escape route and followed her. The girl was still glaring after them and she could see him sweating under her gaze.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes…Thank you…" Saito really didn't say a hell of a lot.

"Does she like you, then?" He gulped.

"A-Apparently." Souji caught up to them.

"She is always after you Saito."

"But… I don' know if I like her…" This was causing him a lot of anguish and you could see it in the way he grimaced.

"Then tell her."

"It's not that easy!"

"Yeah!" Chizuru had to agree with him. She understood what it was like to feel awkward.

"Well it's up to you. It's kinder in the long run." Saito sighed.

"I know…" Chizuru didn't often get time with Saito so she kept glancing at him. She knew he was a quiet guy and she was surprised he got on so well with Souji.

"How long has she been after you?"

"A few weeks." She remembered that a girl had just confessed to him the first day they met.

"She's persistent." He shuddered.

"I just don't understand… We never talk."

"Some girls are just odd. Eh, Ruo?" Souji winked at her and received a hateful glare in return.

"Most people are odd. I just don't get it." Saito sighed.

"People are hard to understand." In particular, the smirking man on the other side of Saito.

"I've tried reading books but it doesn't help." _Books?_

"…Why would books help?" Saito pulled a small book out of his bag titled 'How to win friends and influence people'. Souji just shrugged at her. "I see…"

"I've told you Saito, this stuff just doesn't work."

"Doesn't it?"

"Well it hasn't so far."

"True…" Saito sighed and replaced the book back in his bag. "How else do I work people out though?"

"Umm…" Chizuru wasn't exactly an expert herself.

"You could start by not taking advice from books."

"Anything else?"

"…And don't start making notes from what I'm telling you."

-Page Break-

"So are you guys sure about this?" Sannan was standing at the front of the classroom and looking at the tally on the chalkboard. They were choosing what they were planning to do for the cultural festival and like every other class in history, they had picked a café. Chizuru didn't mind too much since, it didn't require too much work for her. A normal café wouldn't have anyway.

"Well if that's what you want… Yes, Kaori?" _That's probably not good._ Her brother had raised his hand and had an 'innocent' smile on his face.

"I have a way we can improve it."

"Oh?" _Please don't say what I think you're going to say…_

"We could have the boys serving in maid uniforms!" _Oh you did. Bastard._ He made sure to glance in her direction and smirk.

"Ok… Who likes this idea?" A few of the boys and all of the girls raised their hands. This was probably because it would involve less effort for the girls if they didn't have to bother dressing up. "As the majority are for it, we'll do this."

"Nooo!" From the loud wailing and banging noises behind her, it seemed Heisuke had a similar opinion to her.

"Why did they do this to us?" Was what he said later as they were walking through the corridors to lunch. "In fact, why did _your_ sister do this to us?"

"Because she's a bitch!" Chizuru was furious with her asshole of a brother. She was going to have to borrow one of the kendo swords so she could bring it down on to his smug head.

"I can't wear a dress! I'll look ridiculous!"

"I know…" _And maybe they'll notice something…_ This was something she didn't want to risk happening.

"And the guys! Shit, Shin is gonna have a field day!" Heisuke leant his head against the wall and sighed, sinking into a deep gloom. "Kill me now!"

"It'll be ok!" She started patting him on the shoulder. "We're in this together, right?"

"Yeah… Thank you, Ruo!" _And he's hugging me._ It seemed he didn't notice anything. "Let's not tell the guys. They'll rip us a new one."

"I can imagine." Souji in particular… She shuddered. They were quite happy to be getting away from it all and were settling down at the table when Shin threw himself onto the bench opposite. From the smirk on his face, it was obvious he knew.

"Hello ladies~." The raucous cackle could be heard throughout the lunchroom.

"Fuck off Shin." Heisuke aimed a kick in his direction and missed, stubbing his toe on the table leg.

"Aww, I get to be served by these lovely maids!"

"No! You are not coming! Stay the fuck away!"

"You can't stop me." Whilst Heisuke was yelling at Shin, Chizuru was sinking down into the bench. If this guy knew then it was certain that the rest of them did. This fact was confirmed when Souji and Sano appeared with identical smirks.

"It's our favourite waitresses." Sano was aiming this mainly at Heisuke but Chizuru flinched all the same. Though her eyes soon narrowed when Souji sat opposite her. _What's he going to do?_

"Whose amazing idea was this?"

"Ruo's sister." The corner of his lip twitched.

"Ah the cute one. She has a pretty good sense of humour." She looked at Shin feeling slightly panicked. He needed to get away from that idea. Though Souji's evil grin showed that things were about to get worse.

"You should just go for it. She looks like a really nice girl."

"You think?"

"No! She's…. She takes ages in the bathroom! And her room is messy!" The argument was weak but she couldn't bring up the main point.

"I can ignore all that." _Bloody Shin._

"Yeah, that's only surface level stuff. If you like her, ask her out." Chizuru kicked Souji in the kneecaps. Hard. To his credit he only made a small yelping noise.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing at all." _I hope it hurt._ She fixed him with the most menacing looks she could give. This didn't have much of an effect since she was about as terrifying as a duckling.

"Isn't that nice Ruo? Shin could be your future brother-in-law."

"Wonderful." _Why did it have to be this guy? Why?_ Sano was also trying not to laugh. _And him… great._


	11. Chapter 11

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

"It has frills."

"I know."

"And a pink rose… Why?!" Heisuke dramatically threw himself onto the table and Chizuru watched as he let out a few loud groans. She had to agree with this reaction; it was an ugly, tacky dress.

Hanging up at the front of the class was one of the dresses that had been made for all the boys (and Chizuru). A black maid dress with puffed sleeves, white apron and pink rose on the collar. Chizuru hated it. Her face probably showed her distaste. This was the sample dress, the others hanging up on a rack in the concealed area at the back of the class.

It was the morning of the cultural festival and none of the guys were happy that they were all going to have to do most of the work whilst the girls sat around and watched. That wasn't what Chizuru and Heisuke were worried about.

"Those dicks are gonna have a field day."

"They're really going to screw with us aren't they?"

"Oh yes. Especially Shin." _And someone else…_ She was glaring at her asshole brother who was currently helping to get the tables ready. He'd been walking around the house looking pleased with himself; it had been just too tempting to throw things at his head.

Chizuru was just pleased they had no club activities for the festival; apparently the kendo club never did anything. Especially when they opened up their café; a lot of people came to laugh at them and as a result, they were rushed off their feet. Well, most of them.

"I'm not going out there! Never!"

"Please get out of there." Chizuru didn't want to have to go out there on her own (she'd only looked out and that had been scary enough) but Heisuke was currently hiding under a box.

"But I look so stupid!"

"You look fine! We all look a little stupid!" The box lifted a little and Heisuke gingerly peered out.

"You look like a girl Ruo, you don't even look wrong!" _Damn._

"Hey! It's not my fault I look feminine." Looking offended always seemed to work. Heisuke slowly emerged, standing up and looking very awkward.

"I look stupid right?"

"Well… you look quite… maid like." Similar to her in fact.

"Really?" He looked down at his skinny figure with some dejection.

"It's not the figure…" It was mainly the softened face. He just sighed.

"Shin is gonna be such a dick."

"He's just jealous that you look so good in a dress and he couldn't." Heisuke laughed at this idea.

"I guess that's something… I'm just glad you're here too."

"Yeah… We can do this together."

When they finally got out into the main café area, the place was full and they had to get to work. Chizuru and Heisuke were really quite lucky; some guys looked quite uncomfortable in the undersized dresses. Some of the asshole girls were laughing, the nicer ones were just helping to get food ready. Of course Kaoru was one of the jerks snapping photos on his phone.

Chizuru had expected the kendo club dicks to appear at opening time and so the fact that they weren't yet here had lulled her into a false sense of security.

"Yukimura, friends of yours want you." _Bollocks._ Her language was really getting worse, even if only in her head. She looked in the direction indicated to see three identical smirks and one blank face in the corner. Heisuke was in another part of the class, stubbornly refusing to look in their direction so she had to move.

"Can I help you?" She made sure to glare.

"I'm impressed. You almost look like a real girl." Souji was grinning whilst Sano stifled a laugh.

"Ha. You're so funny." She was too irritated to be polite.

"I know."

"Having fun Ruo?" Shin looked so pleased with himself, especially when he looked over at Heisuke.

"So much fun."

"I'm not pleased with the service though. I thought maids were supposed to say welcome home master." Sano smirked.

"And they're supposed to smile."

"Well?" Chizuru sighed. And then she put on a fake smile at full beam.

"Welcome home master." The stifled laughter made her cheeks slowly turn red. "You're getting water and then you're leaving."

"Oh come on Ruo!"

"We're supposed to be friends!"

"And Saito didn't do anything."

"He can have whatever he wants then."

"Wow, you have a lot of attitude for a first year."

"You deserve it." And then she huffed off to get them some water; the sooner they had their order, the sooner they'd have to leave.

That was what she had hoped would happen. Instead she was stuck with them for the next two hours whilst they sniggered and took photos. Kaoru wasn't helping with his grinning and commentary on her 'fans'. Heisuke managed to avoid any kind of direct contact with the gang in the corner and she was too nice to make him join in; the poor boy was suffering enough.

The only positive was that they were soon to be going on a break so would get to go and hide out somewhere else.

"Heisuke," she hissed as he entered the back room.

"Gah! Why are you hiding there?!"

"Shhh!" It was likely the group could hear. "We can go on our break now."

"Oh thank god. Let's get out of here." When he started to go back out to the main area, Chizuru grabbed his arm and dragged him back out of sight.

"We can't go out that way!"

"Why not?"

"The guys will see us and follow. We need to go out that way." She gestured to the other door, slightly obscured by the covered area at the back.

"I get you! Good thinking Ruo." Kaoru was watching from where he was readying some cake and sniggering at the sneaking. Chizuru flipped him her middle finger before closing the door behind her.

The hallway was absolutely filled with people, stalls and random clutter. Two 'guys' in drag kind of blended in with the crowds so they didn't attract too much attention as they made their way through the school.

In the end they headed for the kendo club room. It was isolated, quiet and familiar. As usual, a cloud of dust appeared as they entered the room. No matter how much they cleaned, more always appeared. Heisuke slumped by the table and buried his face in his arms, letting out long and miserable sighs. Chizuru perched down awkwardly so that the view up the skirt wasn't too obvious. She didn't want Heisuke to notice she was lacking something.

"I don't think I can deal with this."

"It's ok. We only have a couple of hours left." This encouragement wasn't helping, judging from the wailing.

"I can't do anymore!"

"Aww. But you look so cute." Chizuru and Heisuke swung around to see Sano, Souji and Shin all leaning their heads round the corner and smirking.

"How did you find us?" Heisuke was instantly on his feet and in a defensive position.

"Where else would you hide?" Sano was edging close to Heisuke, Shin going around the other side of the table.

"But how did you know we were on a break?!"

"Shin found out from Ruo's adorable sister." Souji spoke from just behind Chizuru and she slowly turned around to glare at his evil smile.

"What does that mean?"

"He asked where you guys had gone while he was asking her on a date~." Sano was repressing a laugh.

"Shut up guys!" Shin looked momentarily embarrassed but pleased with himself. _Oh crap._

"They're going for a nice day out on Saturday."

"How did you hear that?" He swung around to face Souji.

"I heard the day and so I guessed."

"You didn't hear anything else did you?"

"No… So where are you going?"

"As if I'd tell you!"

"How cruel."

"Yeah Shin! You could at least tell your best friends!"

"Yeah! So we can laugh at you!"

"You cannot say anything wearing that."

"Gah! Get off!" Heisuke looked very pathetic in an arm lock, especially as his flailing had no effect on Shin's grip.

"This will be fun to watch later." Chizuru could see Souji holding up his phone and filming the struggle.

"Where's Saito?" She wanted someone half-sensible around. Souji pointed behind them. Saito was indeed, sitting against the wall and eating a piece of Taiyaki. He nodded at her when they made eye contact. "Oh."

"So that's your future brother in law, what do you think?"

"Shut the hell up." She was not in the mood for his crap at the moment. "…Go outside."

"Hmm?"

"Now." Souji raised an eyebrow at her serious expression but shrugged. Clearly he was expecting to be amused.

"Ohh! Ruo's gonna punch Souji!"

"Shut up!" Possibly it was the way she hissed but Shin sort of froze under her glare.

"Should I be scared?" Souji asked as she slid the door shut behind them. He looked bored and sleepy as usual.

"What are you playing at?!" She tried to raise her voice whilst whispering so no one could overhear them.

"What do you mean?"

"You can't let Shin get hurt!"

"I didn't do anything."

"You let him ask Kaoru out!"

"I believe you're implying that Shin can't make his own decisions. How mean." Chizuru bonked him on the head. "Ow…"

"Why didn't you put him off?"

"The only way I could do that is by telling him the truth and I don't think you want that."

"…" He was right and they both knew that.

"Your brother seemed keen too. Maybe he likes Shin?"

"No." It would definitely not be that. "He's probably just enjoying getting away with that too."

"Hmm… Your brother is pretty funny."

"You guys would get on." They were both jerks.

"Oh really?"

"Definitely."

"Is this an insult? It feels like it."

"Might be." Perhaps it was a little harsh; Souji was a tiny bit nicer than Kaoru.

"How harsh. I thought we were friends."

"I prefer you so stop whining."

"Prefer me?" _Damn. That sounded kind of suspect._

"I think you're less of a jerk than my brother is what I meant."

"Oh Chizuru." He whispered a little. "That is such a nice compliment from you."

"Don't use that name!" Souji smiled.

"So… Don't you want to know?"

"Know what?"

"Where the date is?"

"You actually know?"

"Obviously. If Shin realised though, he'd change his plans."

"Devious." This guy was clearly an expert.

"Did you want to find out?"

"…Fine." She might as well know.

"They're meeting at midday by the burger place. And then they're going to a film. So cliché but it is Shin so he probably picked it up from a book or something."

"Sounds quite… normal."

"And we're meeting half an hour earlier in the burger place."

"We?"

"Me, Sano and probably Heisuke of course. And you?"

"Why would I go?"

"So we can watch the train wreck as it occurs of course."

"But…" Something seemed wrong about it to her; it was kind of harsh.

"And you can see if your brother is found out?" That part was tempting to her.

"…Are you guys going to ruin it?"

"We're just going to watch and laugh. And drop hints that we watched of course."

"Hmm…"

"Come along if you want. It's hilarious."

 _I think I'm going to have to…_ She didn't trust Kaoru to be honest with her if he was discovered; she hadn't told him after all.


	12. Chapter 12

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

"Going out somewhere 'brother'?" Kaoru smiled.

"Just going to study at the library." Chizuru met her brother's gaze head on. "Are you?"

"Just meeting up with friends."

Once she was out of sight of the house and sure that Kaoru could no longer see her, Chizuru sped up, almost running to get to the meeting spot. She was already late and she needed to get there before Shin and Kaoru so they weren't spotted too soon. Her phone was buzzing so she knew she was being complained at by the rest of the group.

Once she reached the burger place, she headed to the second floor where the majority of the kendo club had gathered by the window.

"Finally!" Heisuke tutted at her as she slid into the chair next to him.

"I had to make sure Kaori didn't see where I was going!" That and she had forgotten to set a back-up alarm. She would not mention this part however.

"Luckily for you, Lover boy isn't here yet." Souji was on one of the window seats and watching the mass of people, with Sano on the other side holding up a pair of binoculars. Chizuru was not going to ask about that one.

Saito was the only one uninterested in the proceedings, choosing to read a book instead. He did nod at Chizuru when they made eye contact, and then went back to being anti-social.

"When's Hijikata here then?" Heisuke speaking got her attention.

"You invited Hijikata?" That guy would not enjoy it at all.

"He thinks we want to have a training discussion." Sano snorted at the naivety of the usually very suspicious Hijikata.

"Won't he be angry?" Chizuru found herself slowly sinking down. If he did get angry she wanted to be shielded from his full rage.

"Oh he'll be livid." Souji seemed almost excited at the idea.

"Am I late?" _And speak of the devil._ Hijikata had finally appeared and was looking round at the assembled group.

"Nope. Plenty of time."

"In fact, I think the main event is going to start now." Sano was leaning down eagerly. "He's here~."

"Wow, that didn't take long." Heisuke and Souji all leaned over to survey the meeting. "We've only got an awkward looking Shin so far."

Hijikata sat down opposite Chizuru and looked straight at her.

"What are we actually doing?" He seemed like he didn't care that much.

"Watching Shin on a date with my sister." Hijikata rolled his eyes.

"Well I knew it wouldn't be a training meeting." He looked over and dragged the tray that had been sitting between Sano and Souji over to himself.

"Hey! That's ours!" Sano looked suitably outraged.

"You dragged me out, you should treat me to lunch." He stuffed a couple of fries in his mouth, confident that he would not be challenged further. The others were more interested in what was going on outside. "Want some Ruo?"

"Sure." She didn't care enough to watch either.

"And here comes the leading lady!"

"Ohh! An awkward hug! First one of the day~." There was really no need to actually look at what was happening; the provided commentary was enough.

"Won't they notice you all crowding the window?"

"Just let them do it Ruo. The sooner they're noticed, the sooner the couple will run off and then they all will get bored and go home."

"I hope so." At least she wasn't alone.

"And they're coming in! Everyone look normal!" The other three sat down and attempted to look casual. Heisuke alone was watching the top of the stairs in a totally obvious way. Chizuru tried not to look at him; it was hard not to laugh at the face he was pulling.

"I don't think they're coming up," Sano finally said after a long enough time had passed.

"Yeah… Heisuke, check they're still there."

"Aye aye!" And after a small salute, he clambered over Chizuru and to the stairs.

"Are we really just going to follow them everywhere?" They couldn't really fail to notice the gang pursuing them around the town.

"We were thinking of throwing things at them too." Chizuru sighed.

"Don't you have better things to do?" All of them just stared. "…Ok that was a stupid question."

"They're sitting and eating in silence." Heisuke had returned. "Shin really sucks at this."

"It's why we love him." Sano thought about this statement for a second. "Why we love laughing at him is what I meant."

-Page Break-

"…This is getting stupid now." Chizuru was crouched behind a nearby plant pot, close to Sano who was peering round the side.

"It's ok, they've turned a corner." _Finally._ Souji and Heisuke emerged from the opposite pot. Saito and Hijikata cared a little less and had sat on a bench, waiting for this idiocy to be over.

Chizuru followed the others reluctantly, not liking the odd looks they were getting. Stalking her brother and friend down the street was not exactly a normal behaviour, especially in a small town like this.

Just following hadn't been the end of it either, they'd all had to apparently launch any objects within reach at Shin's head. So far there had been eight objects launched, three of which had hit the target (two by Sano, one by Souji. Heisuke had nearly hit Kaoru). Shin had started to get suspicious at this point so they were having to keep far back.

"So what do we do about the cinema?"

"I say one of us goes ahead and finds out what film they're watching," was Sano's suggestion.

"Good idea. Saito, you go." Slowly, Saito's eyes raised over the top of his book.

"Why me?" He looked nervous.

"Because you're good at moving stealthily." Saito glared at Souji.

"What if they see me?"

"Pretend you're walking and reading like you usually do."

"He does that?" Chizuru wasn't sure this was possible.

"Yeah. We've had meetings about it." Hijikata sighed.

"Go on Saito! For the team!" With a very uncertain look, he disappeared around the corner while the group waited.

"What do we do in the cinema then? All on the row behind?"

"I say we spilt up and surround them. That'll annoy him." It would be Souji who would come up with that plan.

"It works. I guess?" Saito appeared, moving quickly and looking shaken.

"So?"

"They're seeing that romance film. The really badly acted one." _Nicely played Kaoru._

"Ugh… The things we do to annoy our friend." Sano looked exasperated for a second. "Ok, make sure you all spread out."

Chizuru did not want to watch this film. She hated bad films; they made her cringe so this would be painful. But still she went and stood in line and bought the damn ticket with the rest of them.

"There they are. In the middle." Sano and Heisuke sniggered as they crept down so they were sitting only a couple of aisles behind Shin and Kaoru.

Chizuru really didn't care and so walked to the other side of the theatre, sitting as far away as possible. The others could do what they wanted; she was going to get some sleep so she didn't have to put up with that film. The only reason she had come was to make sure that if Kaoru was discovered, she knew about it. Part of her was wondering if this was even worth it. The guys would tell her if they saw it.

Just as she managed to get settled into her seat and comfortable, the sound of a chair folding out beside her caught her attention.

"You look comfy." Slowly she turned her head to spy a Souji sitting beside her.

"Why are you over here?" Surely he would be better near the happy couple so he could more easily pester them?

"It seemed a decent view. Plus Heisuke and Sano are already behind them."

"Oh…" So now she would be stuck with him for the whole of the film. "Where are Hijikata and Saito?" Souji pointed to where Saito had pulled out his book and Hijikata had started doing some kind of homework. "Why are they still here?"

"Probably they're secretly interested."

"Or they can't be bothered to go home."

"That too." Souji eased himself back in the chair and looked comfortable. "So how shit do you think this film will be?"

"Unbearably so."

"Probably. But I could do with a good laugh."

This film wasn't a comedy. Technically it was a drama. But all of the badly written script and poorly acted lines made it pretty hilarious to watch. The woman swooned even! How many people did that nowadays?

"And there she goes again." Chizuru had to stifle a laugh as Souji leant in and whispered to her, right as the terrible actress fainted again. "Maybe she should carry an inflatable bed with her so she at least gets a soft landing."

"No woman does this! It's so stupid!"

"It is set in the olden times." Chizuru made it very clear that she did not consider this an excuse. "And really, it's all to do with her acting."

"How so?"

"If she wasn't so bad at her job, they would've wanted her around more. As it is, they needed her to be unconscious for half the film."

"That would make sense." The two of them stifled their laughter at the over-dramatic awakening on screen and instead looked over to see what was going on with the date.

They were just in time to witness Heisuke pelting Shin on the back of the head with a piece of popcorn. Shin spun round to glare and Heisuke and Sano both ducked down behind the seats sniggering. From the large amount of popcorn in his hair, it seemed they had done it a lot already.

Chizuru was amused but at the same time tired. She wasn't exactly enjoying the film and she didn't feel like annoying her brother all day.

 _Screw it. I'm going home._ Or she could go to the library; she had told Kaoru that was where she was going. Chizuru grabbed her bag and hopped back over her seat, strolling out of the theatre and into the outdoors. At least now if they were spotted, she could deny having been there.

"Where are you going?" Chizuru let out a very girly yelp and spun round at a sudden voice from behind her Souji was smiling at the exaggerated reaction.

"Why are you following me?" _Damn Souji and his ninja-like stealth._ Alas, it was too late to hit him and pretend that she'd done it out of fear.

"Not much going on in there. And I wondered what you were doing?"

"Home or library. Not sure which."

"Cool. I guess I could follow you." _That wasn't an invitation._ But it seemed he was inviting himself anyway so Chizuru walked along in slightly awkward silence.

"Are you sure you don't want to go back and pester Shin?"

"Nah. I've already got what I wanted." Chizuru gave him an inquiring glance. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started flicking through the gallery where there were several pictures of Shin and Kaoru. "I'm gonna send them to him in a few days, see if I can freak him out."

"Oh…" _Information warfare._ Souji returned the phone to pocket and yawned.

"Stalking people is tiring work. I think I need a coffee or something."

"Maybe you should get one."

"Good idea." And he took her by the arm and led her into a (suspiciously conveniently placed) coffee shop. "How do you take your coffee?"

"I don't want any."

"Yeah you do." And he pushed her down into a chair and strolled to the counter, ignoring her glaring.

 _Does he want to talk about something?_ She could tell there was something since he wouldn't have bothered her otherwise. She would have gone home and left him to it but she had nothing else to do and did kind of want to know why he was suddenly so keen. He hadn't seemed any different from his usual.

"Here you are." He placed a cappuccino on the table in front of her.

"How much do I owe you?"

"It's on me."

"Thanks…" She sipped it awkwardly. Well it wasn't like she knew what to talk about and he obviously had something in mind. He didn't start until he'd sipped half of his sodding coffee though.

"So I had an asthma attack last night." He was smiling but he didn't look happy.

"What? Are you ok?" She knew those things could be lethal.

"My sister cleaned her room; too much dust in the house." He shrugged. "I didn't die so that was good."

"But… I mean, did you have your inhaler?"

"Yeah. It took a while though. She nearly rang an ambulance, hence the sleepiness."

"So should you be out so soon?"

"I wasn't as bad as I could have been. It wasn't long enough to cause any damage."

"But…." Chizuru was worried. "Why are you telling me this?" He looked momentarily thoughtful.

"Hmm… I'm not sure… I guess I wanted to tell someone. And you seem like you won't make a big thing of it. Don't tell Hijikata by the way. He'll kill me."

"Don't be stupid then. What if you had another one?"

"I have the inhaler." He pulled it out so she could see he wasn't lying.

"Still."

"Are you worried about me?"

"Of course! You're my friend!" She was embarrassed to be half-shouting this but it was the truth. Souji looked momentarily surprised.

"It's nice of you to care so much Chizuru."

"You should get back home. Get some rest."

"Yes mother."

"I mean it! I will walk you there myself!" Correction; she would drag him there if necessary. No one could be that stupid, surely?


	13. Chapter 13

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

"Yaah!"

"Do you have to scream like that?"

"It's for effect!"

"The effect being, you look like a dumbass."

"Hijikata, Sano called me a dumbass!"

"Heisuke, stop whining. Sano, good job." Sano and Shin high-fived and Heisuke stood, mouth agape at the sheer unfairness of it all. "Now get back to practice idiots."

Chizuru stifled the laugh as Heisuke turned back towards her and she attempted to put her face back into a neutral expression. At least he couldn't see much of her face through the mask, and the armour would protect her if she got hit because she was too busy laughing at her opponent.

This weekend had been something she had been both dreading and wanting at the same time. Chizuru had never managed to go on a trip with school friends before since she had been ill for the big middle school trip. When Hijikata had said they had managed to get a space in the sports building to stay for a weekend in the holidays, she had been excited. They were having a training camp. The problem was that she would have to share a room with all of them since they were one of the many clubs using that building. That and the communal bath… Chizuru hadn't fancied her chances.

All she had was her back up- AKA Souji and Sano. She couldn't be hopeful though since all they had done since they had arrived was annoy other people and give her crafty looks. It seemed she wouldn't be able to relax at all.

"You're getting better with your blocking." She hadn't heard Hijikata coming up behind her but it was a surprise to get a compliment.

"Really?" She turned towards him, practically sparkling with enthusiasm. He gave her a nod and the smallest of smiles.

"You're not quite confident enough with the striking but you'll probably improve with time."

"Thank you!" It was the first time she had been complimented on her kendo and immediately she felt giddy with excitement. Maybe she had only joined the club because she'd been dragged into it but if she was actually improving, maybe it was worth it?

"An opening!" A wooden sword bopped her on the head just as she turned back round.

"Ow!" Even through the helmet that had been hard.

"Heisuke you dumbass!"

"Ruo wasn't paying attention! That wasn't my fault!"

"You still don't hit someone like that!" That Hijikata hit him on the head to make his point did ruin the argument a little. "Ruo, switch with Souji."

"Why?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because you're sitting on your ass and it's annoying me." Souji stuck his tongue out at Hijikata when his back was turned. "And I saw that." _Psychic… He must be psychic._

This had been the first time Chizuru had practiced kendo for more than a few hours so by the end of the day she was achy and exhausted. And there were still two more days of this. At least Chizuru was actually learning from it. Their afternoon sessions were fun and interesting but the whole days meant they had more time to focus on individuals and having practice duels.

It was a novelty to not have to go home at the end of the day too. In spite of her worries, she liked being with these guys.

They were staying in the large building that held a lot of club rooms, along with kitchens and baths. It had been designed for this kind of training camp and although they didn't get much of a sign apart form an occasional laugh or shout in the distance, there were a few other clubs using the same building that night.

"We better be having some good food." Shin slumped down by the table and started massaging his shoulders.

"I don't know, you haven't cooked it yet." Hijikata was smirking. Shin nearly fell over.

"What?! Why am I making it?!"

"Because you asked."

"Shit!"

"Have fun Shin!" Sano waved at him and smiled smugly as Shin huffed out the room. "Our food is gonna be terrible isn't it?"

"Definitely."

"It's ok. I packed instant noodles." Saito held up a couple of cups. This had apparently been a problem in previous years.

"Well done man."

"I guess you guys can have a bath before dinner if you want." _Oh no._

This had been the part she had been dreading the most. The one place she couldn't hide. And it wasn't like she could go without either, if she had spent all day exercising in thick armour. A quick sniff at the armpit area confirmed this.

 _How do I get out of this?_ They wouldn't let her go in alone and they would notice if she didn't go at all.

"Hey Ruo, you want to go now?"

"Umm…" Out of all people, it had to be Heisuke.

"Heisuke, you should go help Shin." _Oh thank you Sano._

"Why me?"

"Because I want to go now and you will annoy me. Ruo can come in with me and Souji."

"O-Ok!" It wouldn't be great but it wouldn't be so bad either. Sano ushered her out whilst Souji trailed behind, knocking back Heisuke as he went.

"There's not enough space for more than three so you can wait."

"Screw you guys!" They shut the door on him and laughed.

"Thanks for your help…" Inwardly she took back everything she had thought about them being unreliable. They were great.

"Any excuse to piss off Heisuke."

"How are we going to do this?" This could still involve them seeing her naked.

"We'll wait just outside for you. You're gonna have to be quick though."

"Or we'll have to come in." She glared at Souji and backed into the door to the bathroom, slamming it shut as she went.

 _That guy is annoying._ Chizuru wasn't going to waste any time at this point and she stripped herself quickly, dumping her stuff in one of the boxes in the changing area. There would be no time to idle around.

She was thankful for her short hair since she managed to get it washed within a couple of minutes and then submerged herself into the main tub.

 _I have to stay in here a little while I guess…_ She sighed, enjoying the warmth of the water on her aching muscles. Her upper arms and shoulders in particular were feeling stiff. Chizuru wasn't sure how she would cope with the rest of this training camp but she hoped she would become accustomed to the aching. Perhaps it would be good if she really did improve.

 _It's been fun… I'm glad I joined this club._ Considering that she had always been put off by most sports, kendo was actually something she was improving on. Perhaps it was slow going but she was happy. Maybe one day she would even be able to go to a tournament. Though this did seem a little too ambitious for her right now.

Chizuru was pulled from her reverie by the sound of voices increasing outside of the door. Souji and Sano were probably getting bored so she figured she should probably get out now. One of her legs had been extracted from the water when she heard the door open. For a few seconds, she froze. There was enough steam and they were still in the outer area so no one could see her yet.

The voices were approaching so she had to quickly throw herself back into the water. For a moment she was stuck; if the wrong person came in she would be screwed. She sank as low as she possibly could, keeping her eyes over the outer edge of the bath.

"Sorry… Heisuke came past." Sano had appeared, a towel thankfully wrapped around his middle. "Just wait a second and creep out."

"Thanks…" _I will have to try not to look._ She turned and leant up against the wall so she couldn't see any of it. Not long after this, she heard the sound of more footsteps entering as what she assumed was Souji joined them. Now to wait for them to finish.

"You guys lied!" Her heartbeat sped up and she tried not to react too much. "You said we could only fit three!"

"We just didn't want to have to put up with your ugly face."

"Ha ha. Hilarious."

 _How am I going to get out of this? He's going to see. And he won't be able to hide it like these two. We're so screwed._ Chizuru couldn't even move, could barely breathe. This club was one place she felt comfortable and happy and now she was going to lose it. Hijikata probably wouldn't forgive the lying.

A leg entered the water next to her and she curled herself up, trying to hide as much of the female areas as was humanly possible. Someone lowered down, sitting so close they were nearly touching her.

"Hey." _Souji?_ She glanced up. He wasn't quite looking at her. "Just stay close. We'll work something out."

"Ok…" He seemed more serious than he usually was so she decided to trust him.

It was a strange and vulnerable position she was currently in being naked and within touching distance of an also naked man. Whilst she was next to him, she found herself eyeing his back out the corner of her eyes. For someone who was apparently lazy, he didn't have much body fat, and his shoulder blades and spine were well defined, something she had only observed from a distance before.

 _Stop it! You've seen them topless before!_ Though she had to admit, the way his wet hair was sticking to his jaw was fascinating. He moved a little and for a second their arms made contact. She froze up and he pulled away with a quick apology.

 _It's because it's hot in here. That's why I'm so warm. No other reason._ Chizuru was tense and she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to handle this.

 _What's wrong with me?! Why am I doing this?_ She didn't want to stare at him but her eyes kept flickering over, sighting his back, his arms, some of his chest….

"Ahh, this bath is good." Heisuke had hopped in at the other end just at the right moment. The situation changed to a different kind of tense.

"Oh hey Ruo."

"Hey…" Souji moved over so he was hiding as much of her body as possible.

"Wanna play a game Heisuke?" Sano slid in next to him and was grinning.

"What kind of game?" Sano did look quite sly so she couldn't blame Heisuke for sliding away.

"You have to hold your breath." Sano had his arm around Heisuke at this point.

"Really?"

"Yep."

"That sounds easy…"

"Oh it is."

Like the gullible fool he was, Heisuke breathed in deeply and Sano pushed down on his shoulders, catching him by surprise and shoving him under the surface.

"Run!" Chizuru did not need to be told twice. She shot up out the side and was in the changing area before the splashing and spluttering sounds began.

"You jerks! I could have died!"

"You were fine. Don't exaggerate."

 _I need to get out of here…_ As she dressed, she thanked every deity that she had gotten out of there alive.

-Page Break-

"That was a close call." Chizuru had been facing the vending machine, completely in a daze when Souji's voice appeared from the gloom. She flinched and pinned herself against the machine before she knew what she was doing, eliciting a chuckle. "You're jumpy."

"I didn't hear you coming."

It was difficult to make eye contact with Souji at the moment. Normally it was easy to glare at him and meet his gaze now that she knew him but whenever she looked at him tonight, she could just imagine how close he had been.

It had distracted her through dinner and was making her into a zombie now. She'd seen him topless at a glance before but never like that. The image was forever burned into her mind and she wasn't sure why it kept jumping to the front of her brain. Much like Souji himself, his naked body was teasing her.

"You look a little flushed; you ok?" _Is he worried? Or does he know?_ Risking a glance upwards, she could see the usual lazy smile but a small amount of concern in those eyes.

"I'm fine… It's just hot." It was a warm enough evening for this to work as an excuse.

"Sure you can't just get my pretty self out of your thoughts?" _What?!_ Chizuru immediately began choking on air, and Souji started laughing at her.

"Sh-Shut up!" Her cheeks were probably flaming now and no one would believe she was speaking the truth. She couldn't even try to deny any of it.

"Haha. Well I am nice to look at." _You conceited bastard! If I felt capable, I would be calling you that right now!_ Instead she settled for looking determinedly at the vending machine and glaring, not giving him the satisfaction.

Chizuru stayed silent as he leant over her and pressed one of the buttons, so close she could feel his warmth and the smell of him. It was that deodorant he was using; the one he usually found annoying but today found intoxicating.

 _What is wrong with me today? I'm never like this! Not with someone I know!_ She thought she had gotten past all this with Souji.

As he pulled away with his bottle of water, there was a momentary relief of tension and Chizuru felt a small ache in her chest. She was disappointed? Her emotions were becoming difficult to comprehend.

"Mind you." Chizuru froze. She hadn't expected more of a conversation. "You're not too bad yourself."

And with this parting shot, Souji ambled off to the bedroom, leaving Chizuru to freak out internally over the weirdest statement she had heard all day.


	14. Chapter 14

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

Chizuru woke up the next morning with a pounding headache and a tight grip around her waist. What with Souji's weirdness and all, she had been unable to stop her frazzled brain from going into some kind of embarrassment-induced meltdown. This would lead to a problematic enough awakening, but when she opened her eyes and discovered that the grip on her waist was Shin, then she really lost it.

 _What is he doing? Why is he nuzzling me? Wait… Won't he be able to feel my… err… parts?_ She really hoped not. No matter how small they were, they could not be mistaken for muscle if you touched them.

Shin was making grumbling sounds and drooling slightly on to her shirt. It was one of those days when Chizuru knew she was going to hate getting out of bed. As far as she could tell, everyone else was still asleep so there could be time to extricate herself before anyone noticed. Easier said than done when the guy had a vicelike grip.

Trying to wriggle her way out made no real difference to the situation and his hands were firmly locked in place so shifting him wasn't really doing much either. It appeared she had to wake him up. Without waking up anyone else. Great.

"Shin? Shin? Please wake up." She tried poking him lightly, shaking him a little, even slapping him. He shifted and she waited hopefully.

"Mm… Kaori-chan…" _Ugh._ This was really not a good time to be mistaken for her brother. Even if the fact that he was clearly having dreams about him was pretty funny.

"Shin you brick! Wake up!" _Why me? Heisuke is right there!_

At this point she gave up trying to be gentle with Shin. OK he was asleep and this would hurt him but she was stuck in an awkward situation and he was the cause of it. With both hands gripping each of his arms, Chizuru started pushing on them, trying to loosen the hold enough for her to slip out safely. It wasn't really doing much since he was so damn strong.

Chizuru suddenly froze. There was a prickling sensation at the back of her neck as if something was watching her. Slowly turning her head, she saw Sano, sitting up in his bedroll and staring at this weird display.

"Sano-senpai!" she whispered desperately. "Help me!"

This was too much for Sano who had to bury his face in his hands to avoid the explosive laugh from bursting forth. Chizuru scowled as her face heated up from the humiliation of being caught. But at least it was him and not-.

Click. Chizuru had not seen Souji coming until he had appeared at the end of the bed with a phone in his hand and a smirk on his face.

"Stop doing that and help me!" _I can barely look at him right now… Why did he have to say that last night?_

"Help you say?" _Oh no._ That was not a good smile that he was doing. Souji cleared his throat. "Shin! Wake up you lazy shit!"

Yes that was technically doing what she had asked him to do. And yes, he did get the desired result in awakening the sleeping chokehold. But did he have to shout so loudly?

"What the hell?"

"What are you doing?!"

"I was helping Ruo of course." Shin had released her by this point and she had flung herself to one side. This only drew more attention.

"How?" Hijikata looked pissed. That wasn't good.

"Shin had a hold of him. And he called him 'Kaori-chan'." _You were listening this whole time?_ Heisuke immediately started laughing while Shin turned a rather spectacular post box red colour.

"Shut up Heisuke!" Shin and Chizuru temporarily made eye contact and then quickly shifted away.

"You really thought he was his sister?"

"I was asleep! I don't know!" _Curse you Kaoru, you devious shit! And you!_ She glared at Souji. _I will get you for this!_ As if he was reading her thoughts (possibly something he could do), Souji smirked.

"So what type of dream were you having? Was poor Ruo about to lose his innocence?" Sano smirked and Chizuru bundled herself under the covers.

"I was just dreaming about the date! God, you guys!" She really had to feel for Shin at this point. It was not easy dealing with these assholes.

"Aww… Shin is in love." She couldn't help the pang of guilt that hit her at this. If he really cared about Kaoru, he'd be crushed when he found out the truth.

"Sh-Shut up! At least I have a girlfriend!"

"And he admits it! You have become conceited."

"Yeah, show off jerk!"

"You asshole!"

"Ugh. Guys, just stop. It's too early for me to be mothering you." And even Hijikata had given up on them.

-Page Break-

"Ow!"

"Oops. Sorry about that."

"That's OK…" _Damn. Wake up!_ A hard hit to the arm had been a good reminder that sleep deprivation was a terrible idea on a school trip. Luckily Saito wasn't taking the piss out of her for it; she had been fortunate enough to get a considerate sparring partner.

"OK, time for a break guys." The timing could not have been better and she slumped down with a sigh. Her muscles were so achy and she could barely lift her arms while wearing the armour.

"We need snacks!"

"Shut it Heisuke."

"What kind of school trip doesn't have snacks?!"

"Such a brat."

"You can go get them then."

"But my legs hurt!" Sano threw an empty water bottle at his head. "Hey!"

"If you want it, you get it!"

"I don't mind going." Chizuru was tired but she could get out of the armour. And she could escape from hearing about how cute her 'sister' was.

"Love you Ruo."

"At least one of our first years is reliable." Heisuke pouted.

"You guys are always picking on me!"

Although it was hot as hell today (especially in the practice rooms with faulty air conditioning), there was a light breeze today that made walking outside a pleasant experience. Chizuru just felt pleased to be out of her heavy clothes. And she could have been alone too. Though she knew that one of them would have followed. They didn't have to jump out from a bush though.

"How did you get there?"

"Climbed a wall. It was worth it." Sano did have to pick bits of hedge from his hair. "I need the break, let me come with."

"I won't complain." It wouldn't do any good to complain. And Sano wasn't too bad to be around. "So, what's bothering the lovely lady then?"

"Don't call me that!" He just laughed at her spluttering.

"Sorry. Couldn't resist. You just looked so out of it."

"Didn't sleep."

"Yeah, no one can when they're being smothered by Shin. I feel sorry for 'Kaori-chan'."

"Yeah…" It wasn't Kaoru she felt sorry for. Though if Shin gripped him with a death grip in bed, it would make her smile.

"Is that bothering you?"

"A little bit…"

"Shin probably won't be too angry when he finds out."

"It's not that… What if he gets hurt? And I didn't tell him." From what she could tell, it had been really hard for Shin to tell Kaoru he liked him. Once he found out the truth, he could be really hurt. What if didn't trust anyone again?

"Shin isn't that weak. And if we tell him the truth, Kaoru will know what happened."

"Exactly my problem." Chizuru sighed. "What do I do?"

"You could talk to Kaoru?" That had been something she didn't want to do. "He's your twin, right? Aren't you close?"

"Sometimes…." She was never sure nowadays since he had gotten quite moody lately. "What would I say?"

"How would I know?"

"Good point…" They walked past a pair of girls chatting and once again she felt envious. It was nice to just be yourself; something she had always taken for granted.

"People are gonna think you're weird if you just stare at them like that." The girls did look confused and Chizuru quickly looked ahead, blushing a little.

"I was just a little jealous… They get to be themselves…"

"Hmm… Well, do you still act like yourself?"

"What?"

"I mean, has your personality changed?" Chizuru blinked.

"No…" She hadn't really had to change herself at all.

"So you're still yourself, you're just dressing differently."

"That's a nice way of thinking about it." It did make her feel more positive about the situation.

"I am nice! Don't sound so surprised."

"Sorry…" She was just too used to him being rude to people. But then, he could be sensible really.

"Maybe you should find out why Kaoru is dating Shin. Like does he like him or is it just for cover?"

"I think I'll try that." It was doubtful that she could persuade him to break it off if it wasn't serious though.

"Any more problems while we're at it? Any traumas?" He looked strangely excited.

"You like gossip don't you?"

"A bit… Keeps me amused, y'know?" Sano had the decency to look a little ashamed of his motives.

"I get what you mean…" She did it too.

"Right? So? Why are you avoiding my bro Souji?" _He noticed._ Without much time to stop herself, she started to blush. "Was it the bath thing? He was pretty close?"

"Kinda…" This was, after all the only person who understood the situation. "Have I been obviously avoiding him?"

"Only if you know what to look for."

"Or if you're nosy."

"That too." Sano grinned. "Anyway, what's the deal?"

"I haven't been that close to a naked guy since my brother and I were tiny kids and had baths together. So that's kind of it… I guess?"

"Ha. Well my bro is pretty fine. If I wasn't so into women, he could turn me." Chizuru snorted at the image of Sano and Souji together. It would be a terrible combination.

"Yeah it is funny."

"Sorry… I just imagined how much you guys would screw with everyone."

"Oh a lot. It would be fun~. So any other reason?" Chizuru gulped.

"Umm… It's stupid…" She was just over-reacting really. Souji was always making comments like that.

"Continue." She sighed.

"He, err…. Said I wasn't too bad to look at…. I know he probably does it a lot but it surprised me…" And then she braced herself for teasing.

"Aww. That's kind of cute."

"Shut up Sano."

"Heisuke is such a bad influence on you."

"I also got it from Shin." Not really something to be proud of.

"Not used to being called pretty then?"

"Not really." She didn't care too much usually.

"I guess it is weird if you're not used to it."

"And I never know what Souji is thinking. Or why he's doing it."

"Yeah he's a bit of a troll. Hijikata knows him best and even he struggles so I wouldn't feel bad."

"So I shouldn't take it too seriously?"

"Maybe? Hmmm… I'd ask him."

"How?" It could be embarrassing if he'd just forgotten.

"Go over and ask? Seriously, he's nice enough, he'll tell you."

"I'll try…" When hell freezes over maybe.


	15. Chapter 15

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

 _I can do this. It's not too difficult. He's just my brother, right?_ Chizuru hadn't seen Kaoru so far today but she knew he probably was perched at the kitchen table. It was the only room she hadn't checked yet.

Chizuru had chosen a day that she was going to be out of the house within half an hour so if the conversation went south too quickly, she could use plans as an excuse to flee. It was something that she needed to talk about now; Kaoru and Shin had been on a couple more dates and it seemed like he was very keen. Now she had to find out what Kaoru was playing at. Her conscience wouldn't allow her to leave it alone.

Chizuru just had to restrain herself from knocking on the damn door in her own house before shuffling in, carefully watching Kaoru who was chomping his way through a bowl of cereal. He'd definitely been clothes shopping recently, judging by the unfamiliar blue dress he was wearing. _He has much better taste than me…_ And he seemed to have a slender figure that suited that style of dress.

"Going somewhere nice?" Small talk was a good place to start.

"The park with the 'other girls'." He grinned. "What do you think?"

"It looks cute. New?"

"None of the stuff you had was cute enough. You need to go and get some nicer things."

"So you can wear them?"

"Exactly." Chizuru smirked a little.

"And… How are things going with Shin?" Not the most subtle and Kaoru was now eyeing her warily.

"Why?"

"I wanted to know?" He only stared at her for a few seconds but it still felt like hours.

"It's going well. He bought me lunch the other week." Kaoru had a vague sense of detachment as he spoke.

"Nice…"

"Does he tell you all about me?" Eyelashes fluttering, Kaoru smirked.

"Not really. He's private about it all."

"So you came to get the gossip from me?"

"Basically."

"Hmm… And why should I tell you"

"Because I'm genuinely interested in my brother's first boyfriend?"

"Or you're trying to catch me out. No one's realised yet." It didn't seem like he was lying from the direct gaze she was receiving.

"I know you'd tell me. And neither have I before you ask."

"Good to know." That was now the end of the conversation.

"OK, there's something else I want to talk about." For a moment Kaoru looked worried.

"What?"

"…What exactly are you doing with Shin?" Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that.

"Does it matter to you?" He'd gone straight on the defensive.

"He's my friend, so yes it does."

"What do you think I'm doing?"

"I don't know Kaoru, but Shin is a nice guy. If you're pulling him into this to just farther this stupid game, I think you're being unfair." A little harsh of her to presume but she wasn't going to let this stand if it was the case. It hadn't been obvious but for just a second, Kaoru looked a little hurt. Chizuru went to apologise but just missed her chance before he started.

"Whatever I do is my business, not yours. And Shin went after me without knowing me. If he gets shocked by what he finds out, it's his own fault." She really had hit a nerve.

"Kaoru-."

"Sorry I'm such an asshole, 'brother'."

"Kaoru, I'm sorry. I was just worried."

"About your poor friend being picked on by your cruel brother; I know." It had been a long time since she'd seen Kaoru this upset about something. He'd always hidden it a lot better than she had, but knowing someone as well as she knew him, you learned to read the signs.

"Do you care about him a lot?" Chizuru hadn't really considered that as an option but it could happen. Kaoru had never specified his preferences before.

"It doesn't matter." He'd abandoned his food and was now pulling his bag back across the table.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

"But-."

"We're done talking." There was no point in pursuing him when he was in that mood so Chizuru let him pass without any attempt to stop him. At this point it would make things worse.

 _I could have handled that better._ It had seemed like she was accusing him of being an unfeeling bastard when it was possibly something else. Maybe this bet was about something different.

 _Is he into guys? Is he bicurious? Is he a cross-dresser? Is he transgender? Has he just got a random crush on Shin?_ Chizuru almost felt dizzy at the speed her thoughts were travelling. _I really need to fix what I just did._

Her brother could have been really stressed out and she wouldn't know. She'd been too busy worrying about her own problems and getting annoyed with Kaoru. It really hit home to her how distant they had become as they got older. _One day we need to talk things out properly… But right now I need to leave._ All this pondering about her brother's love life was going to make her late.

-Page Break-

"Eat my dust fool!"

"This is stupid."

"You're stupid."

"Oh for god's sake!" Sano tutted as Shin leaned over and nudged his arm. "You're cheating now?"

"I am not cheating, I am giving you a bit of friendly encouragement."

"Bullshit." Chizuru stepped back from the two consoles so Sano and Shin could bicker it out in 'peace'. She wasn't a part of this thank god

The arcade wasn't somewhere she usually would go but Shin had insisted that Chizuru needed to enjoy the wonders of the arcade and as summer vacation was currently underway, they had the time for it all. It seemed like it was more of an excuse for Sano and Shin to try beating each other in different games but at least it was more interesting than staying at home all day.

"How much did I miss?" The fourth member of the party had returned.

"Shin kicked Sano out the chair."

"What a surprise."

"That was accidental!"

"Accidental my ass!"

Chizuru still felt strange being around Souji. He'd done odd things and made her confused, but he was apparently a friend of hers so she couldn't avoid him forever. Talking about it though? Not going to happen. Souji wasn't the worst person in the world but he was a troll and kind of an ass. So no, she would not be discussing this.

It had hopefully not been too obvious that she was a little more distant and recently she'd been attempting short bursts of conversation. Chizuru still did all she could in her power to avoid being alone with him, lest he ask her why.

 _Oh he'll know. Definitely._ He'd likely planned it too. This was probably one of his many attempts to irritate one of his team mates. It was just annoying that this was actually succeeding. Chizuru saw him glance in her direction and she looked away with a scowl. It was just fuelling him if she reacted but it was an automatic response.

"Right, Souji swap with Shin."

"Why don't you swap?"

"Because I want to play with someone who doesn't cheat."

"Souji cheats!"

"No he doesn't."

"Yeah, I just play like a dick." _Well at least he admits it._

Shin gave Sano a small shove as he slid out of the chair, joining Chizuru in her vantage point. She wasn't sure if this was better or worse than Souji, because now she had to worry about letting other things slip.

 _No, this could be good._ It would be a chance to find out how things lay on his side. Though she wasn't sure why she was doing this when it was nothing to do with her. _Fuck it. I'll ask something._

"How's it going with Kaori then?" Shin actually spluttered. It had probably been too sudden. On the plus side, Souji actually crashed his car in game.

"Why did you ask me that? Isn't that kind of weird?"

"No! I'm just worried about my sister! I don't want her getting hurt." Partially true.

"It's… Um…" He was really freaking out by the look of things. There was the sound of screeching tyres and Sano popped his head over the seat.

"Yeah Shin, how is it going? I'd have thought my best friend would tell me everything about his girlfriend. Bitch." Souji joined them soon afterwards and Shin was faced with three very intense stares.

"The fuck guys?"

"Come on, we won't tell anyone else."

"And we won't stop until you tell us anyway." At least they were helping. With this multiple assault, Shin was practically recoiling.

"It's kind of a weird things to just talk about."

"So easily embarrassed. OK, are you properly a thing or are you just kind of dating?"

"The fuck guys?"

"Come on!" Souji started nudging his arm.

"Oh for fuck's sake! She agreed to be my girlfriend!"

"Aww." Sano fucked as Shin took a swing at him. His face was too red. "You're in love~."

"Shut up!"

"So you really like her?" Chizuru was probably coming off as really intense. Shin started playing with his hands.

"Yeah I guess… Don't tell her though!" _He can be cute sometimes._

"Ah good. She really seems to like you too." And suddenly Shin was right in her face.

"She does? What did she say?" He forgot the embarrassment in his haste.

"Not much but she gets this look in her eye when your mentioned. And she seems excited to go on dates with you." Shin really looked happy.

"You bastard."

"What?" Sano was glaring at him.

"You get a cute girlfriend. How dare you."

"Fuck you!" Shin looked smug. Too smug. He deserved the kicks he received from Souji.

In her interaction with Shin she had completely forgotten her other awkwardness, only reminded when they moved on to another game and she ended up walking next to him.

 _What was I supposed to do?_ That was her main point of confusion. She didn't know if she was supposed to respond or if she should have laughed it off. It showed how unused she was that any of his comments flustered her that much.

"You're quiet." Souji was smirking.

"I don't usually talk that much."

"You haven't nagged me about something in a while."

"I don't nag that much."

"You and Hijikata like to take turns with me."

"If you're comparing me to him, that's not a bad thing."

"It almost feels like you've been avoiding me." She could see the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned, a sure sign he was attempting to annoy someone.

"Oh really?" _Be vague. Don't let him get ahead._

"Yeah. It's odd. Ever since that training camp."

"The training camp?" _He better not mention it. Especially with Shin right there._

"Or more specifically since I said you were-." Chizuru elbowed him. "It seems I touched a nerve."

"Just shut up." One of the more irritating sensations in the world was when you could feel your face heating up and could do nothing about it. She heard the chuckle but didn't look over. At least Shin and Sano weren't listening.

"I'm going to guess that you haven't really been flirted with before." _What?!_

"Flirted?!" She spluttered.

"Yeah?" He didn't seem bothered.

"But why?" Souji shrugged.

"It seemed funny." _Well. Well!_ Chizuru scowled. She did not enjoy being screwed with. "Something wrong?"

"Don't do it again."

"But-."

"Never!" She checked the other two weren't listening before leaning over. "Or I will get one of Kaoru's high-heeled shoes and stick it up your-."

"What are you guys doing?" She quickly moved back as she saw the others were watching, both smirking. Souji hadn't been too worried about the insult, apparently more amused than anything else.

"Ruo was talking shit towards his favourite Senpai!"

"That would not be you."

"Yeah, it's clearly me." Sano received a look.

"If anyone it's Saito, because he doesn't annoy me."

"Wow."

"Why are both of our first years so ballsy?"

"I think it's you Souji. You're a terrible influence on our kids."

"…I'm walking away now." She was not going to get involved in some kind of strange familial argument.

 _ **The scene with Sano and Shin fighting over the game was partially inspired by my younger brother and his girlfriend playing Super Mario Kart, because they are hilarious to watch. She goes from being really nice to 'Eat my dust you shit!'**_

 _ **Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed :)**_


	16. Chapter 16

**The Ordinary Life of Chizuru Yukimura**

 _ **Disclaimer: Hakuouki isn't mine.**_

Yet another day of the summer holidays and the third day in a row of not speaking to Kaoru. She'd made an attempt to make amends, tried to contact him, even going so far as to staying in all day so that she would catch him going in and out. But none of it worked. It seemed Chizuru had really touched a nerve.

 _I shouldn't have said anything… I should have just let them be. I'm such an idiot!_ She let out a frustrated growl and slammed her fist down on the half-finished homework currently being ignored. From now on, she was just going to avoid interfering in the relationships of others since it just brought about more harm than good.

 _At least I've gotten some studying done._ She'd not done any real socialising since and it had freed up her time for work; nothing else could stop her from getting fidgety and a little bored at staying in all day. But now, even this wasn't quite doing the trick.

Chizuru stretched herself out and yawned, laying back on the ground in the path of the small fan currently keeping the room from becoming an oven. The heat wasn't exactly helping her feel any more focused.

Zoned out as she was, she didn't fully process the doorbell ringing until it was pushed a second time. She groaned and pulled herself up to her feet. After ensuring that she looked suitably boyish in case it was someone who did not know, she made her way to the door, blinking in the bright sunlight that filtered in through.

"Jeez Ruo, you look terrible. I'm glad we came." She stared blankly at the Heisuke and the Souji at her front door.

"Um…" _Why are they here?_

"We did try ringing you but you didn't pick up."

"Um… Did you want something?"

"I just wanted to see you!"

"And he wanted to copy some of your homework."

"Hey!" Chizuru just watched this with the kind of blank detachment you have when coming back down to earth after hours of being lost in your own head.

"…Just come in." She couldn't really be bothered with questions, she just wanted to sit down.

"So it's just you here?" Heisuke asked as he wondered past, looking around the place. It was the first time she'd actually brought any friend home since starting the new school.

"Yeah… Kaori is out and dad… Well, he's doing stuff…" She assumed he was working but honestly, she never really knew. Their father was pretty busy in his job but he rarely came home so she could never be certain he wasn't off doing other things.

"That sounds suspicious…" Heisuke was leaning in and raising an eyebrow. "How do we know you haven't killed your father and stuck him in the basement? Hmm?"

"Oh no, you've guessed my secret. Now I'll have to murder you as well." Chizuru was a little too tired to actually play along properly so she spoke with a deadpan expression and a tired voice, barely supressing a yawn.

"Poor acting man. I'm disappointed."

"I don't care." Chizuru decided to ignore Heisuke and to return to the main room where she could lie down by the fan and zone out again.

"Woah, Ruo is broken."

"Look on the plus side, you can steal all his homework without any kind of resistance now."

"Oh! Good idea!"

Chizuru sighed and idly watched as Heisuke began digging around in her stuff. If that was all he was going to do then she was fine with that. All Chizuru was pleased about was that she hadn't gotten any of the family photographs out yet. There weren't a huge amount of them but more recent ones would have probably been a bit of a giveaway that something was a little different about the pair of them.

Souji had perched himself at the table next to Heisuke and was looking around with a somewhat bored expression. As far as she could see, there was no reason for him to actually be there but she didn't really understand his motives most of the time anyway.

"Why are you here too?" This didn't mean she wasn't going to ask him why.

"Yeah, why did you come? You just had to show me where it was." _Oh yeah._ He was probably the only one who knew where her house was.

"I had to walk all the way out here so I might as well come in too."

"I guess." Heisuke was no longer too interested, instead leafing through some of her books. They'd done it before so she wasn't too fussed with what he did. Mainly she was trying not to fall asleep in the heat.

 _I think I'm more tired than I expected._ She'd been thinking about Kaoru way too much so she'd needed a rest. She could hardly talk to him in front of the other two anyway. With a yawn, she closed her eyes. Just a quick rest would do. Maybe.

-Page Break-

It was the chuckling that roused her first. This, with whispered voices which came in through her barely conscious brain, dragged her out from the deep sleep she had somehow fallen into and back to the world of the living. Chizuru could tell there were some people close to her and so she opened her eyes, squinting into the bright light.

"It lives!" Heisuke gasped dramatically whilst Souji smirked behind the phone he was holding up.

"…Are you filming me sleeping?"

"No." She sat up and tried to shove the phone away, struggling to properly co-ordinate her movements in her dazed state. Chizuru was aware that Heisuke was trying to hold back laughter so she knew there was probably more to it than that.

With a glare at the pair of them, she got to her feet and marched to the hallway where there was a conveniently placed mirror. Sure enough, someone had drawn a moustache on her face and the word 'fool' in big letters across her forehead. She scowled at her reflection but really, it was pretty funny so she couldn't be too annoyed.

"Very funny assholes." Heisuke was laughing openly at her but it was what Souji was doing that bothered her.

"And sent~." _Sent?_

"What's sent?"

"The rest of the club now have a nice photo of a sleepy Ruo."

"…Thanks for that."

"You're welcome~." It would be better to just confiscate any kind of camera from him in future.

"Aww, look Ruo." Heisuke held up his own phone, showing a photo of her, covered in her new paint and fast asleep.

"I would kick you two out, but since you've already done something ridiculous, I think it'd be a bit of a waste of time."

"I think you are very sensible." She sighed. Her friends were just bloody weird.

"So… What else is there to do around here?" Apparently Heisuke was already bored of his schoolwork.

"Finish your work since we're back in a couple of days?" He pouted.

"No! We should be exploring the house of Ruo!" Heisuke had hopped to his feet. "Seriously, you've never let me come round. We're practically besties at this point man!"

"Besties?"

"Like best friends? We spend so much time together at this point."

"Oh… Yeah, I guess we are…" _I have a best friend…_ Chizuru wasn't sure why she was so touched by this concept but she was. She'd had close friends of course, she'd just never had someone refer to her as their best friend; one of the many downsides of moving around so much.

"That sounds pretty apathetic! Don't you care Ruo?" He looked almost crushed.

"Yes! Of course I do! I'm just happy…" _I am much too old to be blushing over this._

"You two are so adorable." And obviously, he'd been filming it. The asshole.

"You're going to show everyone aren't you?" Heisuke didn't seem overly embarrassed, just done.

"Yep." Chizuru was, for once, the less apathetic of the pair. Before Souji could realise what she was doing, she had snatched the phone from his hand and started deleting. "Hey!"

"Do not ruin our lovely moment of friendship! It is supposed to be sacred!" It was satisfying to note that he practically recoiled as she hissed in his general direction.

"Aww Ruo! I knew you cared!" Heisuke actually hugged her and she tensed up. What if he noticed? But… well, it was nice to have a touching friendship dammit! As they hugged, Souji just hovered almost awkwardly. Not like he could do much without his phone.

"Can I have it back now?"

"Feeling left out Souji?" Heisuke was grinning at him whilst Chizuru laughed. She was very much glad that they were joining forces against their upperclassmen now.

"No. I just want my phone." _Is he… flustered? Oh my._ She was enjoying this for a change.

"Come join the hug man!" _Wait, what?_ Heisuke had grabbed Souji by the arm and dragged him in, forcing him to join the affection. Chizuru wasn't so pleased about this part, especially as their faces were all a little too close.

"Um…"

"So this is a little gay."

"No! It's touching!"

"Hmm…" She and Souji made eye contact and she had to quickly look away. He was way too close for her to deal with. _This guy always gets to me._ When she did look back though, she started, surprised that he wasn't giving her one of those annoying grins. Instead, he was also looking in another direction. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought his cheeks were a little pink.

 _What's going on? What is this?_ Things were silent for a strange amount of time and even Heisuke picked up on it.

"What's wrong with you guys?"

"Nothing!" _Definitely nothing._

"Souji?"

"Weren't we going to be exploring the house?"

"Yeah…" Heisuke was still eyeing them both but he did start to move off. "Where's your room then?"

"Um…" _Is there anything incriminating in there?_ She'd been trying to keep it more neutral since the whole gender swap thing so it should have been alright. She'd been preparing for people coming round after all. "Follow me." She could blame anything weird on Kaoru just screwing with her anyway.

Her room had never been massively cluttered, partly because she usually just shoved everything in cupboards, and partly because there were still some things in boxes after the move. Heisuke and Souji followed her in and for a moment they surveyed the place with a criticising eye.

"This… is kind of boring."

"Where's all the embarrassing stuff?!"

"I've only been here a few months, I haven't unpacked all the little stuff! And what were you expecting to see anyway?"

"Some baby photos or something?" Chizuru sighed and then she reached out and pulled over one of the boxes. Photos of her and Kaoru when very small wouldn't matter so much.

"Here." She removed a small photo album and handed it to Heisuke. "Enjoy."

"Yes!" He threw himself down on the bed, with Souji sitting beside him while they surveyed the pictures.

Mostly they were of the twins in various days out; at the zoo, in a park, one even with their father. It was all pretty normal. Their father had been pretty lazy when it came to dressing them so often they just wore the same shirts and shorts, occasionally dungarees. Dresses were less common, and because the pair had looked so similar at that age, it was hard to tell who was who.

"You guys looked like a pair of kids from a horror film."

"What?"

"Like when you get the twins that stand there and stare at you from the end of a hallway." Heisuke held up a picture of Chizuru and Kaoru holding hands in a park and smiling up at the camera. If Kaoru's smile was a little wider, and Chizuru seemed more awkward, it wasn't hugely obvious.

"Well thanks."

"This is seriously lacking in photos of you guys in the bath though."

"You think I'd keep those where you could find them?" She'd stuck those in the bottom of a box in the attic a while ago.

"Curses! He really thought this through."

"Indeed." Souji had moved over to the box and was picking through some more photos. "This is pretty cute. Older Ruo in a skirt…"

"What?!" _Oh no._ Heisuke and Chizuru both rushed over to see a photo of Chizuru and Kaoru on a beach trip last year. He was standing in a pair of shorts and a shirt, leaning up against a potted plant whilst Chizuru was smiling, a long skirt and a tank top on. "Ruo?!"

"Um…" She didn't know what to say. Honestly, they did look very much like themselves, and if you knew Chizuru well, you couldn't fail to know it was her.

"Why are you wearing a skirt in this picture?" He hadn't seemed to work out that she was supposed to be a girl it seemed.

"Err…"

"It was because of that game you guys used to play right? When you'd switch clothes?" _Thank you god._

"Yeah! That's it!"

"Oh… I thought it was maybe before you started, you know… transitioning? Is that the word?" Heisuke looked kind of awkward about saying this. _…What did he just say?_

"…Um… What was that?" _Did he just…?_

"Ah! Sorry, I didn't mean to say anything! It's just…" He shuffled around a little. "You're one of those… is it transgender people?" _He noticed?_

"You knew?!" All this time she'd been worrying about Heisuke finding out and this whole time…

"Well yeah. Not right away or anything, I kind of realised. But I didn't want to say anything since if you considered yourself to be a guy… Well, then I guess you are one…" _…How is he so nice?!_ It looked like he'd worked all this out in his head a while ago. _I really underestimated him…_

"This… Um… It's not exactly what you think…" She needed to tell him the truth since he was her self-confessed best friend.

"I can't believe he actually worked it out before me. Damn Heisuke." Souji chuckled a little. "I guess you do notice random things before other people."

"I'm not stupid, I pay attention! Ah! Sorry for pointing it out though…." As if he was worried he'd hurt her feelings or something.

"No it's fine! I'm actually… I'm not really switching gender or anything like that… It's complicated…"

"Huh? But you're dressing like a guy? And being referred to by a guy's name? And using the guy's bathroom?"

"Um…"

"Her and her brother agreed to switch genders for a bet to see who got found out first. Obviously we're not telling him that we worked it out." Heisuke blinked.

"Wait… Kaori is a guy?! Shin is dating a guy?!"

"You didn't notice it in him?!" She wasn't sure if she was pleased or offended that she wasn't as good as Kaoru at this.

"I know you better! So wait…. A bet?"

"Yeah… We used to switch a lot as kids so he said we should try it…. I'm sorry I lied…"

"So… You're not becoming a guy?"

"Not really… I'm just me I guess?" She wasn't really sure how it mattered.

"Huh… Wait, so do I need to keep this a secret? Who else knows anyway?"

"Only myself and Sano. Man, he's gonna be surprised."

"Huh… This is kind of exciting! It's like a secret club!" _Well… He's not mad…_ "So Tsuruo's not your real name?"

"No… It's Chizuru."

"Hmm…. I guess if you ever go back to being called that name, I will call you Chi." _He really likes his nicknames…_

"Thanks?"

"So why didn't you guys tell me this before?! I can see why you didn't tell the others but come on!"

"Because you normally suck at keeping secrets." Heisuke went to shout back at him, but paused.

"OK, I'd like to argue but I guess you have a point…"

"You did surprise us though."

"Heh… Don't underestimate me!" He looked properly pleased with himself. "Don't worry Ruo, we will make sure you win this bet! What do you get if you win anyway?"

"The loser has to do what the winner tells them."

"Then you better ask him to buy us all a really fancy meal or something."

"Of course I will." It would be a good way to apologise to the others for lying and to thank these guys.

"Just make sure you don't make any 'chicks with dicks' comments at Shin." Heisuke started spluttering.

"I wasn't going to do that!" _…I think you were… I guess he won't say anything about me… It's just whether he'll ruin it for Kaoru._


End file.
